EP 13 Chef Juke

Meet Patrice Mackey, a long-time Burning Man participant known as Chef Juke, who reflects on thirty years of history and evolution within the event. The conversation transitions from his 1994 arrival at the playa, a time of extreme simplicity when the "Man" stood on the ground and only a handful of cars were present, to his current role managing internal tech support and writing rejection letters for the Department of Mutant Vehicles. A core idea of his is Mackey’s philosophy on the three pillars of Burning Man: awe, inspiration, and community, which he argues allow adults to reconnect with a childlike sense of wonder. He describes the shift from an intimate, temporary gathering to a permanent cultural institution while highlighting the technical and bureaucratic efforts required to facilitate radical self-expression and safety. Throughout the interview, Mackey emphasizes the importance of impermanence and the joy of helping others bring their creative visions to life in the desert.

This is a great episode, Chef gets so animated talking about his "3 pillars" theory (what Burning Man is all about to him) he knocks his headphones off accidentally. 

Transcript

They make the trek out to Burning Man for a week and a day. After a lot of work, there's a lot of play. Party party drama drama drama. b****, b****, b****. Year after year, they come back to scratch that itch. They all say their lives have been changed. After many years, lives have have been rearranged. That changes what this show is all about. You'll see the impact of Burning Man up and out. So sit back, relax, and cancel all your plans. These are the stories about the shadow of the man. 

Hello and welcome to the Shadow of the Man Show. I am your host, Andy. Oh yeah, that Andy. Today our guest is Patrice Mackey, otherwise known as Chef Juke. Welcome.

It's good to be here.

Yeah. So, I decided to change up my format a little bit. Like in the past, like what I would do is I I would ask each guest to do like a quick like 30 second introduction and then go into their past history and then go into their Burning Man experience and then talk about, you know, how Burning Man has changed them. But, you know, a quick 20 30 30 second like uh elevator pitch of their their experience usually turned into like the 20 minutes. So So I'm like how about we just start you know let's start with the with the Burning Man experience. So you know like so so when when did you first hit the playa and like and and and why?

Uh I first hit the playa in 1994. Um I had uh recently moved up to Eugene, Oregon. Um and had been here for a year. and started a new job at a software company. Imagine that. Somebody going to Burn Man who's been involved with tech.

Fancy.

Um and uh had has had a lot of life changes and uh a friend at work posted a message about come learn about the Burning Man and had an afternoon gathering and a number of us came and watched kind of a slideshow. Um and I said, "Oh, that's going to be in Labor Day weekend. I'm free and I'd kind of like to do something cathartic. I've had all these changes, but I'd love to, you know, I've never been desert camping

and that sounds really interesting. And I remembered that I had read a short little blurb about Burning Man. I think it was an outside magazine in 1992. And again, 100 people went to the desert and gathered. And so I said,

"Wow,

sure. I'm up for some adventure." And that's what got me to the apply it for the first time.

So, you went with some friends or like uh

Yes, it was actually a a harbinger of what was to come. It was a classic uh Burning Man experience. We had this great plan that uh I think nine of us, all from my work, all colleagues, we were going to all drive together. We're going to caravan from Eugene, Oregon out to Gerlock, out to Nevada together. And in the last four days, it all fell apart. Nobody ended up caravanning. And I ended up spending I think I had gotten like 4 hours sleep in the in the day and a half before I left. And so we left a day late and way later than we should drove all night and got to the playa at 4:00 a.m. uh on Friday. And uh one of the things that I I I tell younger participants uh or more recent participants, you know, when we arrived It was 4:00 a.m. on Friday. The man was going to burn that Sunday.

Yep.

Uh and there were maybe 20 cars on the play. There were that few people.

Wow.

Um and in fact, uh I know you know the folks in the audio can't hear, but the the picture behind me on my on my Zoom, that is me. That's a self-portrait I took about an hour and a half after I hit the PLA for the first time.

And it's just my silhouette looking at the man standing on the ground. Yeah, for all you youngsters today, the man was on the ground. No decomposed uh granite, you know, no

no no no base, no no not not anyway. So uh yeah, so we drove we drove all night uh and and got there 4 in the morning. There was hardly anybody there. Uh when we pulled off the road, there was a a single guy uh sitting out next to a teardrop trailer with a little Coleman lantern.

Yeah.

And he looked looked at us. We pulled up to him and he said, "Burnie man."

He said, "Yes." Got tickets. Yes. Okay. You see that car? And there had been another car ahead of us. Follow that car. You're going to go 11 miles straight and then turn right and go two miles. If you hit water or a mining camp, you've gone too far. And that was it.

Wow. Did you bring a compass?

I Actually, he asked, "Do you have a compass?" Like, "No." And then, "Well, yeah, just try and go straight." And pretty quick, we realized I'm driving

I'm driving like 40 miles an hour to start. Pretty soon, I'm driving 60 m hour and cannot see anything but the two tail lights ahead of me.

Uhhuh.

And then they disappear because the dust from the car ahead of us, they were about they were about a quarter, maybe half a mile ahead. And I realized I'm just driving pretty blind across this dark desert. And I can't can't see much beyond my headlights. Um, pretty soon I saw this little blue light on the horizon and I thought it was maybe another Coleman lantern or something. So, I said, "Well, I'm just going to aim for that." And as we got closer and closer, it started growing, getting taller, and finally realized, "Hey, that's the Burning Man." So, we aimed for that

and uh and then we were there. And uh and I have to say, I don't know if I was hooked in that first 30 minutes, but we got there and I looked around and it was just so strange here in the middle of the literal middle of nowhere. There was this 40 foot tall statue. There's nobody around, nobody up. It's 4:15 in the morning and there's this blue neon. The only sound is the generator generating the power for the neon lights. And it was just such an out of thisworld experience and I was like, "Okay, this is really interesting. I can't wait to see what happens."

Well, it's a nice kind of easing into it, right? Like you get there, most everyone's asleep and you're just like, "Oh, okay." Cuz I remember in the Ply Pete in his story like him and his wife get there and and it's just like people driving around. It's all crazy and he was just like, "I don't know what we came to, you know, like." And then there's like, "Well, we're just going to camp like far away and then the morning we'll, you know, like we'll we'll pack up and go. somewhere else. But then like the I guess the morning came and he walked around and he was like, "Huh, this is a little different than I thought." Like this is actually pretty cool.

Yeah. You know, it is definitely, you know, you can talk to people like myself who who who've been introduced to Burning Man in Black Rock City at different periods and you'll get a lot of different as I'm sure you have a lot of different experiences. Nowadays, people, you know, they they come to Burning Man and every year I I know people who have come for the first time and I get to watch them like you know their jaw drop and Burning Man I think the more modern Burning Man experience is is akin to getting hit over the head with a baseball bat. You come and it's just it's so big and it's so o overwhelming. And for me uh you know I was participating for years in a a much um at at maybe lower volume. Um, and so, you know, when I talked to people who said, "Wow, I went to Burning Man and man, it changed my life and boom, it was like a bolt of lightning, and I feel like my experience was much more like the frog in the pot of water."

Um, where, you know, it's slowly getting hotter and hotter. You know, I went to Burning Man, went, "Wow, that was fascinating." And and I talked about it a bit, but it wasn't it wasn't like getting the bolt from the blue. It was like, you know, interesting. So, I went back back and it was even more. It still was interesting and it was interesting but but the the change happened for me like in a slower way over time rather than getting just hit with the the in a flash moment lifechanging moment you know that a lot of other people experience.

Well, where did who did you camp with? So what was your early couple years experience there? Yeah.

So the the friend, the colleague at work, friend, uh, uh, Steve Wolf, also known as, uh, the digital, at the time, his nickname became the digital navigator, and now he goes by, uh, Mythy Miffy, uh, because he was always kind of miffed. Um, he was the one who who who drove with me uh to to the first burn. And he had a friend uh, Alex uh, and she was the press liazison for Burning Man that year.

Oh.

So we We we drove there. It's 4 in the morning. We were exhausted. So, we just threw up our tents and just went to sleep and like we'll we'll find we'll find Alex in the morning. Um woke up and cuz my tent was 110°. Uh and I opened up my tent flap, looked out, and driving by my tent was a a boat, like a little cabin cruiser. like it was a a Lincoln Continental with a with a boat on it

being chased by a shark, a silver shark.

Mhm.

Which I later found out was Ripper the shark car.

The Yeah. These were the first art cars I ever saw in the PLA.

Being chased by a strange little VW bug with a whole bunch of stuff stuck to it, which I later learned was Harold Blank's uh famous art car, Oh My God. and they just drove by and that was like my first morning waking up at Burning Man and that that that boy I am sure not in Kansas anymore moment. And then we went we found Alex, we moved our our tents over there and we got to sit uh or stay in this little like pop-up shade structure which was the press tent. It literally was one of those

10 x 10 pop-ups.

10 x 10 popups.

No. And I'm not kidding. I mean, this is what Media Mecca was back then. It was this 10 x10 pop-up. It had a little sign and a little picket fence, like a little tiny picket fence and a sign that said the fourth estate press tent. And all day long, uh, a journalist would come and meet with Alex and she had come up with a little oath that she made all of the press. And they had had some issues a year or two before with uh, an HBO crew. that had come out to to film and they came out and apparently were acting very entitled. Um, and they were like they would they would tell people like get out of the way. You're you're in our shot. We're trying to get a shot. And and that wasn't met uh with a lot of kindness from the snarky burners of the time.

And they got so uh this this group started chanting negative things at them so much that they got scared and drove off to leave. Went the wrong way and got stuck out on the play and and Danger Ranger had to go had to go save them. But anyway, this oath that uh the the press leazison had uh journalists take was I promise not no yeah I promise not to interfere with anyone's immediate experience and basically told them look you're here ideally you're going to participate but you don't get to you know tell people to move out of your shot you don't get any special privileges you know you can come and capture this, but you know, on these terms and and it was great and we so we you know woke up, had coffee, got you know got got settled and about 3 hours later Larry came over to do some interviews. So Larry Harvey shows up and I meet Larry. Okay, here's this guy and sat and you know four hours onto the playa I'm listening to Larry being interviewed by two as I recall Japanese uh journalists talking about Burning Man and so you know bunch of us are sitting there listening and it was really interesting. It was interesting because

okay like at this point like how like 1994 like how big is Bernie been like you said there were 20 cars I mean like with this it seems like a a good number of media showing up for

oh it was how many

so all day long that so this is Friday morning

all day long people showed up so I think the official number was maybe 1500 for that year, but it had gotten enough that there were press there and that they needed to have a press tent. Um, uh, you know, so I don't I you know, I I can't tell you what the official number. It also swelled the night of the burn because all the locals could come for free and just showed up. And I've got some really interesting photographs from them of, you know, some very some very, you know, uh, rural Gerlock folks coming in,

local boys and their lifted trucks.

Oh, well, There's I have one photograph of what looks to be a family uh with you know some some cowboy hats and boots and and you know Bud Budweiser tall boys you know walking around looking at all the strange folks. Uh um but you know it had gotten some press uh but it wasn't anything like now but people were interested what are these people going out into the middle of desert and doing? Well

that's just interesting because like so early on even when it was so small you know Yeah. Um, and Larry, what I what I remember the biggest thing that I remember Larry talking about at that time, um, he he at the time there was a Club Med advertising slogan saying that Club Med was the antidote to civilization.

And Larry mentioned that and he said, you know, Burning Man, we we come out here, we build this little city and we build this great this great sculpture, this great piece of art and then we we appreciate it. We sit here and we celebrate this thing we built and then we set it on fire and let it go. And out in the real world, out in he didn't I don't think he called it the default world, but he said out in the real world we we have this thing where we fool ourselves into believing that all of the things in our world are permanent and they're not. And you know, our our you know, our homes, our jobs, our relationship ship. These things are a lot more transitory transitory than we than we'd like to think. And sometimes that means we take them for granted. And here this is a little bit of, you know, I think of Burning Man as um as a monument to impermanence. You know, it's great. It's here for the moment. We celebrate it, but we know its whole purpose is it's going to go away. And hopefully what people take away from this is at celebrating the things we have in our world, the the the people, you know, the the the the great things that we have in our life. We, you know, so really celebrate them. And I I took it as a a bit of a an update on Ram Dots's be here now, you know, be here in the moment.

And that I think is what what translated into the immediiacy principle, you know.

Ah yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, and so that was the thing that stuck with me, you know, right after that first burn was listening to Larry talk about, you know, a monument to impermanence. Let's make sure to celebrate the things that we that we appreciate in the world.

That's also another interesting I just think I just thought of um like the difference between like things like and and an experience, you know, because like a lot of people think like I'll be happy when, you know, like when I have this or when I have x amount of dollars or when I have that ebike or or whatever, you know, and then you get it and then you're like, well then what? what's more than more and more. It's like, you know, I mean, the I think the happiest person is a person who's just happy with like what they have. I mean, that's kind of a separate thing, but then like I don't know, just the the experience versus the the thing. Like it seems kind of more like like what Larry was talking about. It's more of

like the experience, you know, and so like the the thing can help you

like get to that experience, but then at the end you're just like, yeah, then you light the thing on fire and then what you have left is the memory is the experience.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think and I think it's really one of the the the challenging things. I mean for me for years I started joking as Burning Man kept happening because in the early days it never felt really certain that there'd be one next year, you know, especially there were a few years where it was really questionable whether it would be their next year.

Yeah. Oh yeah. And 96 and then 9. I mean

uh and and

when it did seem to be sort of sort of get into the groove of permanence. I thought it was fairly ironic that this thing that my introduction to it was this is a monument to impermanence and again the irony is in that in that statement.

Mhm.

Um was sort of again ironic you know oh there's this celebration of impermanence that has somehow become sort of permanent. Oh huh. How h how do you process that?

Yeah. Yeah. Uh another question because I was actually talking to Coyote about this. He didn't really have an answer because I think his first year was 96, right?

Yes.

So when you were there in '94, uh how many large scale sound camps were there?

Oh. Oh. Uh there were no large scale sound

even small scale. No, what there was and I do I actually have some video uh of visiting this in 95, but there was rave camp.

Uhhuh.

And rave camp was about two miles from the main from the main city. So you literally had to and at that time there was no limit on on driving. So people would drive all over. You would literally get in your car and drive two miles and there would be a stack of speakers and you would that was where the rave happened.

Was that 94 or like when was the first time you experience that

I experienced it in '95, but I think it might have been there in '94, but I know it was there in '95. Um, because we have a pretty funny video of us going and and pranking the folks there. Um,

well, it's funny cuz like some people like to think it was like, oh, Bernie man's a music festival like cut out or whatever. You know, it's just like, well, actually, you know, you know, it's like it wasn't quite like the rave scene wasn't quite there at the beginning, right? I mean, Larry didn't show up at Baker Beach with like, you know, turntables like

Yeah. I actually actually from hearing him tell it for all the folks telling it, no, it was much more of a hoot and nanny with some guitars and a little a little more uh a little more San Francisco hippop uh than what than what you see now.

So when do you think that the the the music or you know the like the rave scene kind of showed up?

I mean you first experienced it in 95 but I mean what would be your guess?

Well the thing is it it was much more small scale. I mean I think a big turning point honestly was in in the late as the late as we call them. Uh you did start seeing more people uh bringing bigger camps and you know with those bigger camps you started getting bigger sound systems.

Um but a big turning point was in I think it was 2011 the the year that that tickets first sold out.

Yep.

Now what preceded it as I recall um was some folks in the EDM world uh sort of announced that they would be at Burning Man and the way a friend described it was and all over Europe uh I think it was one or two DJs you know said oh and we'll be in August we'll be at Burning Man and simultaneously across the European EDM landscape thousands of heads turned towards America America and said, "Burning Man, what's that?" and then went and bought tickets. And so the that that sort of was a a part of the like a big bump, a big jump forward in folks coming out with the intention of coming to a more music focused event.

That's kind of interesting. It's just like once the tickets kind of sold out for the first time, then all of a sudden it's like it's become this hot take a commodity item, you know, to get a ticket to Burning Man. I mean,

well, no, I think it was a little more that the ticket sold out because a whole bunch of people from this other this other sort of large group of, you know, folks who are into that particular thing found out that there was some of that here and it was an interesting place and so that was part of what prompted the tickets selling out. Now, again, this is this is my aging aging burner memory. Uh, but I remember at the time that was part parcel of what what seemed to be going on at the time was a whole bunch of folks started coming because these these announcements of you know oh we'll be playing here and they thought it was a and I think many of them thought it was a festival a they may have thought it was a music festival

um and that that sort of put the music aspect into a higher gear.

So yeah so you go 94 there 95 96 like so are are you part of a theme camp or are you like you volunteering at early days or

first the first three years I went with just a handful of friends.

Uh 96 I went with uh I think about eight friends from Eugene and some of the original people brought them out. We all went had a great time and right after the 96 event I joined the then Burning Man email list you know long before you know the the current flavors of social media people communicated by email lists

and I found out immediately that two weeks after the event there was some folks were having parties in San Francisco there was the the precursor the anon salon precursor

to to uh decompression that was a party at a at a club space in San Francisco

is that cell space

yeah and uh and so and then there was another party that somebody uh on a fellow named Gus Alcantar was a party he was holding at his house and he invited everybody on the list to come. And so me and my friend Steve Wolf decided we would take a road trip down to San Francisco. My mom lives in the Bay Area so we went to and stayed with my mom and we went to three Burning Man parties in three nights and then drove back. But the key there was the second party uh sorry the first party we went to at this guy's house was just this great party. We met, Larry was there, Marian was there. They were dating at the time. Uh, and there was this whole group of people who I had only sort of seen on this email list and we all connected and that was this catalyst for bringing this email list into sort of real life meat space and that really prompted more and more discussion about Burning Man on the system. What do we want to do? And then then what happened was we folks started talking about more what the next party was going to be and the next event was going to be in San Francisco. And some folks who were not in the San Francisco Bay area started saying, "Wait, I thought this was a a a list about Burning Man, not about San Francisco parties." And so the head of list said, "Well, okay, we're going to create a new list. Who wants to join?" And I joined that new list. And that list became the catalyst for what became the first village at Burning Man, the blue light district.

Blue Light. Yeah. Yeah. So, that little list became a sort of subset of the Burning Man list or and we started talking more and more about um about Burning Man and you know after 96 there was a lot of discussion because all of a sudden Burning Man was getting larger like significantly larger and for the first time it started to feel feel less intimate and it started to feel like there were more folks who were coming for different reasons than we had come we I say we had come for and that was the year we started talking about how many yahoos were there um you know there was as one person put it a lot of frat boys frat boy types this is I'm just quoting who were leaving their beer cans everywhere and shouting shut Show us your breasts,

body parts.

Yeah. And and

this is an explicit podcast. You can say whatever you want.

They were saying, "Show us your tits." And and there was like people were definitely feeling an influx of a different vibe than we had had the previous years. Now, also 96 was a year after uh a lot more Burning Man Press had had come out. Uh the I think the uh the Wired book had come out. Yeah. I believe. Anyway, and so It had doubled in size and people were going, "It's not feeling as intimate. What can we do?" And what if we created little villages within the bigger city and each of those little villages will be about the size of what Burning Man was two years ago in '94. And I remember my first comment on that was like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. We shouldn't do that." But over the year, I I was convinced otherwise. And so, we organized into let's do a village. We'll have this combination of little theme camps and uh and we did that in 97. So 97 was the Walapai year.

Yeah, I remember that.

And so we planned out and we'd have all these little things. So we had a bar across the street. My little camp we had uh a friend created some bal a balan puppet show like you know shadow puppet show. We did that and And we had a blast. We had a great time. And the next year we we you know you know this this became and still is my community. This became my Burning Man community, the Blue Light District. I've been friends with these folks you know going back to 96 uh you know from starting on this this email list. But that's how you know I got I got I got deeper involved. Burning Man got its hooks in me through this community. Oh, cool. Well, okay. Two things. Uh I know we talked about it offline, but uh just for the folks listening at home, uh it's like how did you get your ply name? And then we'll talk about the art card thing after that.

Okay. Well, this that leads right into this. So, one of the things we did when we created this village was a woman named uh Michelle uh set up we were going to have a communal kitchen. And I brought a shade structure that I borrowed from friends and I said, you know, um I had studied culinary arts in my earlier life and I was more than happy to help cook. And so we got people to sign up to help cook and people would bring a bunch of people would bring food. Some would bring eggs or bring whatever, you know, sausages or whatever. We were going to cook brunch every day. And so we got the kitchen set up and I showed up and again I had been in culinary school. I actually had, you know, a chef's coat and a chef's hat. you know, to uh and an apron. And so I show up to volunteer. I'm just going to help. I'm not organizing or doing anything. And as happens at Burning Man, uh sometimes people have um you know those Burning Man moments when everything goes sideways and they just have to go in their tent and be away from everything for a while.

Well, Rachel Relle, the organizer, had that moment. She's like, "I'm having a crisis. right now. I can't deal with this. And then went and hid in her tent for a day.

A day. Wow.

Oh, yeah. I think it was like a day and a half.

That's a Yeah.

This happens like right after I show up. It's like, you know, I don't know, 10 in the morning. I show up in my crisp, you know, my moment momentarily crisp white, you know, chef's coat, chef's hat, and I'm standing in this kitchen and all a sudden people start showing up going, "Oh, here's my three dozen eggs that I have for the kitchen. Where should I put them? And I looked at them and said, "Uh, all right. Let me figure this out." And then somebody else came out, I've got three rafters of bacon. Where should I put them? And the next thing I know, I've taken over running the kitchen. At the same time, people who hadn't met me, because again, most of our communication for the play had been via via email are showing up. They're seeing me. And you have to realized that this is 1997. One of the biggest cultural things that had had come on the cultural landscape was South Park. So people literally walk up and go, "Hey, it's Chef from South Park." Like

say what?

What? And and and now so so that's where the chef part came from. So basically, but I have to start with Juke and really I should have um that first year that I showed up at at Burning Man. Um, one of my one of my uh I used to be a pretty pretty strong in music trivia. My dad had a huge collection of albums. He had over 10,000 albums in our apartment in New York. Yes. My dad was an audio file. I was huge audio file when it came to pop music. So when I was younger and when albums

kids, you remember albums, they were 12 in Anyway, anytime I bought music, I would read the liner notes and for whatever reason, the information in that stuff stuck. So, I was pretty good that I could name, you know, if you wanted to know about any song, any pop song from 1955 to 85, I probably could tell you who sang it, what year, what year it came out, and probably sing it. So, that first year at Burning Man, hanging out with uh Alex and her friends and she mentioned a song but she said I think she said you know Lean on Me by Al Green and I went no no no no Lean on Me was by Bill Withers and she says are you sure and I say oh yes it Google oh no we can't do that right now

exactly you know this is long before you know which really has taken away one of my best you know party tricks was being able to do this because now anybody can you can hum it into your phone But I said, "No, no, no, no. That was by Bill Withers. It was off his second album." But you may be confused because he it came out the same year that Al Green had his biggest hits hit, Let's Stay Together, 1974, blah blah. They're like, "Are you sure?" And then I started I literally started singing the song and that led to well then who sang and they named another song and I told them and I started singing it. So pretty quick. I was like, "Well, can you sing this?" And it became kind of a name that tune thing, but at one point she says, "Gosh, you were like this human jukebox." Okay, put a pin on that. It's two years later. Alex is coming back to Burning Man. She hadn't been in '95. And she says, "Oh, you've got to meet my friend Lisa. She'll be camping with with us this year. She also likes uh you know, oldies and likes this music." And when I showed up in the Playa, I went and looked for their camp. camp. I found their camp and there's a woman I don't recognize sunbathing. Uh, and I said, "Uh, hi. Is this Alex's camp?" And she looks up at me and she said, "Well, yes." And she looked and said, "Wait a minute. You're you're that juke guy." And I said, "I'm sorry. What? Uh, the the the jukebox guy." Huh? Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Yo. Yeah. It's like, yeah, cuz she had it stuck in her head that I was the human jukebox.

Ah,

well, that became an in joke with us. So, all all event long, I kept saying, "Just call me that juke guy." Yeah. You know, that juke guy. So, back I mentioned that when I joined the Burning Man email list, I noted that everybody had these nicknames. So, I started signing my emails, I put a sig line of that juke guy, which became juke. So, people started referring to me as Juke. And then in 97 when I showed up in the chef's outfit, people started say calling me chef and that's how I became chef juke. So that's how it stuck.

Wow. That's that was a long the long disjointed version of that story.

Well, it just shows you like what happens when you show up in a uniform, you know, people are just like, well, you're the official. I guess we'll be following you.

And and at Christmas uh and at Christmas it becomes Santa Juke. And uh I haven't I don't know I don't know if any other uh major major you know if I if I become an engineer I don't know

I wonder it was at one point that like you know the the fascination became you know just like the stump the juke you know just like okay we got to find you know something that you don't know and we're going to keep playing this game until you like you know

oh no I don't know

I have I have been through that many many times and it's not that I'm perfect and as my brain has aged I'm not as good as it good good good as it as I used to be

but but So then uh yeah, so then how did you uh get into the the mutant vehicle or art car business?

Well, so for the next three years uh 97, 98, and 99, I ran the communal kitchen for the Blue Light District. And one of the folks who had joined our little community was a woman named Jules Cody.

And Jules was from Texas and had come out to San Francisco for some reason. Ended up coming to Bernie man and man did it stick. Um she got very involved and after 96 uh and as folks if folks don't know you know there there there was a lot of stuff happened in 96 and there was some injuries related to and we had in '95 and '96 there were injuries related to um vehicles driving on the player and it was decided for the 97. In 97, they decided, look, we've got to be do some things about safety. Um, it's it's too much of a free-for-all. You know, the the organizers are like, we don't want to be responsible for somebody, you know, getting hurt. Uh, you know, even though we say safety third, there's some there's some limits to that. Um, and they started restricting driving and especially on the Walapai where it was a smaller event and there was a lot more concern, but there had already been this history of people bringing their art cars to the event and they wanted to keep that going. And so they created the Department of Mutant Vehicles to give people a license to be able to bring their vehicles or to drive at the event if they had some kind of art car. And Jules ended up volunteering to run that. So Jules started running the DMV and in 2002 uh she was putting out the call amongst friends um and for she needed more help with the DMV because more people were wanting to bring their vehicles and I raised my hand and said sure love to help. As I said my very first morning at Burning Man was when I saw my first mutant vehicles and it definitely definitely left a left a mark. Um and so I started volunteering and over the next few years was just, you know, one of the rank and file. Um, and at one point I started getting a little more involved. Now, my background, my tech background is in tech support, you know, so doing support for for folks. And as the DMV started growing, um, there's a point where they were getting more applications to bring vehicles than they could invite. And so that meant they had to start sending a lot. They could only invite so many. And they started having to up the the criteria for what could be invited. So a car with an interesting paint job alone really wouldn't pass muster, you know. Um so that's when we really moved from art car as we saw call it to mutant vehicle. And the only difference is a mutant vehicle is a type of art car. It's just more modified. It's something that really doesn't look like a street vehicle. It's not a hot rod, you know, it's not a car. It's something far more dramatically changed. Along with that meant that we had to not invite a number of vehicles and that means you have to send them a note saying hey thanks for applying but you know unfortunately for these reasons it's it's not being invited. The fellow who was responsible for writing those those messages was definitely an old school burner and old school in the term of had a tendency to be pretty snarky.

And there were points where I was seeing these messages going out and going, you know,

not good customer service.

Yeah, that's it's, you know, yeah, we're get we're saying no, but we could be kindler and gentler about it. So, he went on vacation for a week and I took over that role and never relinquished it. Um, and and honestly, since 2007, I have written basically every we call them non-invited letters, but every rejection letter for the DMV. Um um because I really I was really wanting to make sure that people understood that even though their vehicle wasn't invited, it didn't mean that we didn't appreciate the time, effort, and love that they were putting into their work. You know, we have this limit. We really can't invite everybody who wants to come. We have to choose and here's why. Try to give them a concrete reason and understanding why, but you know, not have it be or feel like, you know, your vehicle sucks. I mean, that's that's definitely not not what we want to.

So, more than a postcard that just says no.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Or as some of them were, you know, some of the messages before I really got to say was like, you know, why did you think that this would

God know and And so,

and what if somebody showed up like with an art car that uh either you didn't know about or wasn't approved? I mean, and they were just like, "Well, I showed up anyway."

Well, well, so for the most part, uh you know, you can bring any if you're driving it in yourself, you can bring any vehicle and have it parked at your camp.

Mhm.

You just can't drive it. Uh unless it's licensed. And you know, this is one of those real those idiosyncrasies about Burning Man. And and I know there's lots of different talk about Burning Man and the organization these days. But

there there's a there's um because of its size and because of how it's grown and how it's evolved, there's a a necessary level of bureaucracy that has to happen. And for the DMV, we try to be the least bureaucratic we can be while still doing the job that we have to do. And because the, you know, we talk amongst ourselves and we keep reminding ourselves the last thing we want to become is like the real world, the default world DMV. We don't want to be, you know, yes, we sometimes have lines that people have to wait in, but we we we don't want to be that. Um,

you don't want to have like the plexiglass window or the people take a number like our next 54 step forward.

Yeah. No, no, not at all. And and you know, but but to your point, you you can't bring an extra vehicle of any type. You can't bring extra vehicle into the event without an invite letter from the DMV, you know, uh saying, "Hey, you know, if you come with a vehicle on a trailer, you will you if you don't have an invite from the DMV, um unfortunately your your vehicle and trailer will probably have to sit in the DOT next to uh next to gate uh for the event." Um and again, that's that's that that is part of the bureaucracy, but um you know, I mentioned earlier, you know, we've had uh we've had a number of deaths related to safety, you know, issues and some related to mutant vehicles over the years.

And when I meet with mutant vehicle owners, especially new ones, you know, we we talk about the the the people um we we explain that we have this list. There is this list. It's a very small list. Uh and we don't want that list to ever grow. And you know, for our part, That's us talking to mutant vehicle owners about safety. Um, about making sure that they really understand the responsibility if you're driving, especially the larger vehicles, you know, out in a a a yes, it's the desert. Yes, there's a lot of space, but there's also 70 80,000 people, not all of whom are particularly sober all the time and at night, etc. You know, it is a big respons ibility. So, we try and make sure people understand that. But it's also why we can't have just everybody driving whatever vehicle they want to they want to bring.

And do you have like different kind of classifications of mutant vehicles? Like, okay, they have like the big like sound barges, you know, that are towed by like a military truck. Then you have like a car, you know, that's that's kind of chopped up. Then then you have like all the way down to like maybe like a golf cart chassis or, you know, all the way down down to something like, you know, pretty small. I remember one year I've always wanted to make me my brother always wanted to make a like a lazy boy chair like on tank tread on tank treads.

So, never got around to that.

So, while there are different vehicles with different aspects and I also will let you know

that that that military that particular vehicle in the military truck that was not that was a that vehicle broke down.

Uh the vehicle couldn't drive and that's why it had that we we allowed it that time. to have that. Normally that vehicle would with the the tow vehicle wouldn't have been licensed by the DMV.

So we don't we don't have those kind of classifications. I mean we do we do sort of we we can tell how big a vehicle is etc.

Um but generally it's all about the level of mutation. You know we have a criteria that's set up. We have it up on our website. Um but basically it the key is if It shouldn't look like a street or stock vehicle. Um, you know, it should be modified to the point where it doesn't look like a street or stock vehicle. We don't, you know, we try really hard not to, you know, judge artistic aesthetic. Um, you know, hey, you know, as long as it's as long as it's not something that somebody goes, it's a Chevy. Um, and uh, we will accept vehicle that are outside of their normal context. People asked a lot about the the 747 that we did invite as a mutant vehicle.

Was that a vehicle or was that like an art installation?

It Well, it was it was both. Um it was both. Uh it did move. It did move on more than one occasion. Um but we've invited other planes other you know a plane. It looks like a plane. I think we've had like five different actual planes much of most of them smaller. uh that have come as mutant vehicles over the years. Uh that was just the most noticeable and newsworthy one. Um and uh but there's not a separate category for them like you know. Uh

yeah. No, I guess my question is more of like do you have just like a set number like say like okay we're only letting in like 300 and it could be of whatever type but like what if you had like 200 that are like smaller or what if there was like 150 that were super large, you know, which let in more if there was like, you know, like while we have these 400 people that are making a small like like the cupcakes, you know,

so we are talking right now about some of the large vehicles. There's there's a little concern around there, but we don't do that by size. We have in the past when we were getting uh a few hundred more applications than we could invite, we have said to people, hey, if you're making a brand new vehicle, you may not want it to be the same type as you may have seen out there. In other words, there might only be, you know, if we had 500 applications that were all motorboats.

Mhm.

Well, we're not likely to want to have h, you know, threequarters of the vehicles that we invite be the exact be look the same.

Yeah.

Um, and we do now when we have a large number of applications, uh, what we will do Sometimes if there's a number that are similar, we'll put them aside till we go through all of the applications and then look at the grouped vehicles, the whole group. Boats is one that comes up often, but boats, couches, you know, things where we're seeing a lot of the same type of thing

because if we're we have had years where we've had to say no to vehicles that did meet our criteria

because we have a thousand applications, we invite. And just so you know, we invite we have a limit of invites of 800 vehicles. We invite 800 vehicles each year,

but that is with the intention, our target is 650 vehicles licensed on Playa.

The difference is for the last 15 years, we've had a very steady average that 24% of the vehicles we invite do not show up each year.

And part that is it takes a lot to bring a mutant vehicle out to the

just Murphy's law just exactly right you know things happen and that's but but for us it means you know okay we rely on that and that that that has worked out pretty well so we invite 800 with the with the expectation that we'll license 650 some of those are day and night vehicles some of those are night only some of those are day only so it works out and the BLM so far is happy with that number when it gets a little more than that they get a little worried um But we've had times where we have had to say, you know, there's some that don't meet our criteria out of the the gate. So, we'll say no to them. Uh, but there's some that do, but maybe, how do I say, barely, they barely meet that. And so, what we'll do is we'll go through all of the applications. You know, we have a the system design. So, we see everything at least once before we reach our limit. And if we're seeing a lot of one type of vehicle, we'll put them off to the end. and then review all of them. And if we're really short and we've got again say 30 boats, we might say, "All right, at this point we're only going to be able to invite 15 of them." And then we get to some tough decisions. Um, but so far the last few years, it hasn't been so much of a problem. Uh, our intention is to, you know, curate as lightly as we can and have a wide variety of vehicles and we've done that pretty well. We do get some feedback that people think that you have to have a million dollars to make a mutant vehicle that the DMV would invite.

And the reality is those very large vehicles are there are very few of them overall over over 50% of the vehicles we invite are golf cart size or slightly larger.

Mhm.

So that's 400 plus vehicles. that we invite. Less than 30 are the huge party barges.

Mhm.

30 out of 800 that we invite. But the big ones get the most they get the most photos. They get the most press. They get they're the ones that you notice a lot. Um you know

I think some of my favorite ones like was uh the the cupcakes like I mean because I think there was like three or four or five of them or something like that. I mean I'm not sure if like if if you were just bringing them on a flatbed. It's like would that count as like four or five art cars or would you be like okay you guys are kind of count as one?

I you know one of my So I'm often asked what's my favorite vehicle?

Uhhuh.

And I was like uh that's like asking a parent what's your favorite kid? You know and part of that simply because over the last 23 years that I've been doing this and working with mutant vehicle owners and creators and seeing what goes into this, there's so many vehicles that I am I'm just I I I love all of them. I mean, I really do. Um, but one of my all-time favorites, uh, and I will share this one because I think it's really indicative of Yep. I have seen vehicles that I know cost, you know, well north of a million dollars. One of my all-time favorites is one that's been coming for about 12 years. Uh, and or maybe 13. Um, and it's based on a golf cart. And it is called Rocket Luna. And you won't, but it is the intention is it is a rocket ship as drawn by a six-year-old. And it so perfect. It is a golf cart with a under around the golf cart. They put a frame of a little rocket ship. Uh uh I think it's I think it's PVC pipe and they covered it with fabric that they painted on port holes. And it has a little tail and a little nose cone on it.

And it looks exactly like a rocket is drawn by a six-year-old. I'll send you a picture of it.

It is. The moment I saw it, I just went, you know, it was one of those things that it just it was a beautiful simple work, you know, just this. It was so simple, you know, and it was so basic, but it was so perfect. And and I don't know that that that is one that I often showed people and saying, "Look,

if you brought this or something like this,

this is about as as as cheap a mutant vehicle as you can make,

and all it takes is some inspiration and uh you know, a little sewing, a little a little painting, and some lights and you're there."

Um,

yeah. Think more inspiration than big dollar signs, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, and that's really the thing, you know, for me, the reason Burning Man is still still compelling to me after 30 years is every year I go and I see the impact it has on first timers and I have you know I've I've sort of narrowed you know we have the 10 principles

yeah no I I definitely want to talk about the whole like awe thing because it's like yeah I mean we'll we'll get into that until a little bit but um

Sure sure How about uh we'll switch it up now. It's like let's go back to your your background. So like so where where did everything all start with little baby chef Juke?

Ah okay. Well I was born so

everything. Um so I grew up uh first part of my growing up uh grew up in Brooklyn uh Brooklyn in the Brooklyn New York in the 1960s. Um my dad black from black guy from rural Georgia Uh my mom Norwegian American uh from from Berkeley, California. Yes, I am an Afrogian uh or as a friend of my a friend of my folks wrote to to them on my on my uh on the occasion of my birth, you know, he will be the African Viking. Um but so I grew up my my parents were very involved in the civil rights movement in in the 1960s.

Um I do point out that you know often when when talking about that aspect of my life, you know, when my parents got married in 1962, the year before I was born, uh it was illegal in 18 states for an interracial couple to get married.

Yeah. So, what year was it loving?

Yeah, I was loving 1967.

67. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I had a fascinating upbringing. Uh my parents split when I was 10. Uh and when I was 13, moved to Berkeley, California, where my mom had grown up. So, my mom and I are both graduates of Berkeley High School. Go Yellow Jackets. Um, and uh, in school um, I did well in in New York in school. Um, for two years I went to the choir school of St. Thomas Church. I' been involved in singing and then later got involved in drama. So, I did drama all through high school and did drama in uh, I went to community college for two years and studied drama and culinary arts. And when I was done there, I had two directions to go. And I had friends in the drama world who are really struggling. So I said, "Huh, but there's lots of rest there. There's only so many theaters and and so many people make it in the theater world, but there's a lot of restaurants."

Well, the two kind of go together, right?

Well, they Oh, they do go together. People say, you know, people say, you know, there used to be the joke of, you know, what do you do? I'm actor. Oh, really? What restaurant?

Um, but uh I then started uh my first job actually was in a restaurant. I got a volunteer job at a restaurant and cultural center in Berkeley called La Pena. And so at 14, I became a bus boy and a dishwasher and then a waiter when they were short-handed. And I was a very cute little 14-year-old comes up, can I take your order? Um But that kind of stuck and restaurants was my world. I worked uh in the Berkeley, as they used to call it, gourmet ghetto. Um uh at a restaurant called the Fourth Street Grill and uh I worked for Alice Waters of

Sha Penise fame at uh her little cafe, Cafe Fanny

and a few other places. And that's what I really did till after moving to you uh up to Eugene.

And so what years were you living there like went to high school and everything in Berkeley? Is that like 70s or Uh yeah was I started uh I graduated uh class of 81 from Berkeley High School.

Oh okay.

Right. Then went to Contra Costa College. Um al and uh started working in restaurants. In 88 I was working at an espresso bar in San Francisco called Pasqua that was later bought up by Starbucks.

But they had a number of kiosks, you know, little pool places, little espresso bars around. town and they had one I worked at was right outside of the Embaradero BART station uh entrance and uh noted one of our customers, a young woman kept coming in every morning at quarter of 8 for a medium coffee with cream and uh found her particularly attractive so ended up asking her out. There's a long story there that I'm not going to go into but um asked her out and uh she had um found out her name. Oh, Jennifer. Hi, I'm Patrice. And went from there.

It's just right on the cup. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. She she she um she had lived in Eugene, Oregon for 10 years and then come down to the Bay Area.

Met me and uh um so in 80 late ' 88 started visiting up in Eugene for uh you know just visiting all of her friends. She basically had her second family up here

and um thought it was beautiful up here. Loved it. And uh we we were dating in '89. In '89 there was this whole earthquake thing that happened.

Oh yeah.

And uh and I realized that the first thing that I thought about was where was Jen? Is she okay? And this is long before cell phones. And it took me it took me I was with a friend at Candlestick Park trying to see the uh the World Series game. which they canled.

Yeah, that's right.

And then spent, you know, an epic journey, uh, getting back to my home, uh, you know, our place in Emeryville to see if Jen was there

and how did you get across the bay? Because wasn't the Bay Bridge like

we the Bay Bridge had part of the section of the Bay Bridge collapse. So, first we had to take a bus. Uh, my my my friend and I who had gone to the game uh took a bus back to downtown San Francisco, which took like two hours because traffic was horrendous. Picked up my uh my pickup truck. I had parked downtown and we had to get across the Golden Gate Bridge and then across the San Rafll Bridge and then to uh to Emeryville and then found out that she had left a message on our our answering machine that she had stayed in the city.

Ah,

literally three blocks from where my car at my truck had been parked. So, I've been watching my close tour.

Um, and then I took my friend home and on the way we passed the Cypress structure in Oakland, which was a double-decker freeway that had collapsed. And that that was a you know, that was a very uh

uh a person who worked for my mom had had had perished in that in that

collapse. But, but uh pretty much since the first person I thought of was Jen, I thought about it for a week. So, a week after that earthquake, I I proposed when we got married and then then when we were ready to like start going back up to to Oregon and uh uh said yeah it's great place to raise kids. They don't seem to have earthquakes as much as they do down in California. And uh so moved up here in uh we bought a house in '92, rented it out for a year and then moved up in 93. Um so that's how I ended up in Oregon. And so from New York City to Oregon is a Very interesting. I still have to I still have to explain to old old grade school friends where they go, "Wait, you're in Oregon, right?" Like, "Yeah, where is that exactly?"

Is it like that old video game Oregon Trail?

Yeah. Oregon Trail. Yeah. You have you have died of dysentery.

So, did uh did she ever go to Burning Man with you or is she part of

Yeah. So, when I first went to Burning Man in 94, our daughter uh our our oldest daughter, first daughter was a year and a half. Uh, and I remember asking, it's like, "Hey, Jen, I was thinking about going, you know, going to this thing, you know, would it be camping?"

Yeah. Well, this camping, it's desert camping, but remember, okay, this was really new. And all of this information keeps saying, "Be careful, you might die out there." So, I kind of had to have, we had a discussion. Is it okay for me to go away for the week? You be or the week? It was only going to be like four or five days. Um, Don't you sure? And then I came back and I was even though it was early days, uh I think I got home at midnight, she had already been asleep. I wake her up and I I probably didn't let her go to sleep for about two hours going, "Hey, and then this thing and and and monument to impermanence and and this other thing happened and then the man and he dear, go to bed."

Exactly. Exactly. Um uh so the thing was uh so We then had our second daughter in 96 and I you know by the time I'd gone you know you know three times and you know it was that thing where we weren't sure if we want to bring kids and Jen you know said you know I don't want to I'm not sure if I'm comfortable bringing the kids until I've been there myself. Uh so it took uh it took five years. Uh so in in 99 the third year that I was running the uh the kitchen. Uh my mom took our our daughters are old enough they could stay with my mom for, you know, for a week and so Jen came in 99. That was her first time. Um and the only challenge with that was by that year the kitchen had kind of grown a lot bigger. So that year for five days we fed we only did one meal a day. I didn't want a I didn't want it everybody relying on our kitchen. for every meal cuz like if I'm driving out at this point I had a rental truck and I'm driving this rental truck full of food and if I crashed on the road on the way to Burning Man I didn't want we're out here at Burning Man with no food. Um but she helped me she helped me run the kitchen. We but we fed 350 to 550 people brunch every day for 5 days.

Wow.

And that

that's a lot of work.

It was still it's it's honestly it's the most work I think I've done in a week in my life, you know, to to date. And was kind of like my Everest. I took a year off after that.

Um,

well, what was the first year that you saw kids on the player?

Oh, I saw kids. Um, I don't think I saw kids my first year. Definitely saw them 95 and 96. Not a lot, but a few. And And it was more like, you know, a family camping together with one or two kids. I I didn't I didn't see a lot. Um, and uh We took I took my daughter first went when she was 12. So it was um it was 2005 and she had a great time. And then I took my younger daughter the next year and they both they both had a great time. Um hasn't stuck with them as much as it stuck with me. My eldest daughter's gone twice, but they also they have busy things and there's other stuff that they want to do.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, that kind of brings us to the our last question is uh it's like What does it all mean to you? Why why do you do this?

You know, it's like, you know, what's the impact of this on your life? I mean

I mean, how how many years you've been doing this? You said like 30

30 years. 30 years.

Is it like half your life?

Uh, actually, uh, I have to look at my calendar. I have it on my calendar. I think it is sometime later this year. It will be literally half my life that I will have been attending Burning Man. I, uh, I'll be 62. Oh god, I'm old. I'll be 62 uh next month. Um and when I get to like the 31 and a half or you know uh it's funny figuring out that justosition of when um well so it's a funny thing um for years especially when the term burner started going around and also the the stereotype of the burner. Oh dude, no Burning Man, you've really got to go to Burning Man. And I kept saying, "No, no, no. I'm not that burner. I I just go, you know, I just go." And there was a point and the point really was in 2019, I actually got a day job at Burning Man. So, while most

You mean your staff like is like a year round staff?

Yes, year round staff. So, you know, my background was in tech uh well restaurants and then tech um and in uh 2017 as happens in tech uh uh the end of 2017 they uh the company I was working I had worked for for 23 years. I actually started at the company. Wow.

6 months before I went to my first Burning Man and late 2017 they moved out of the area that I was in. And so I got laid off but I had an opportunity through that layoff. I had a nice severance and an opportunity to go back to school. So I went back to school for a while uh for two years and got a machining and CNC programming degree.

Wow.

Because I really was interested in being able to make things because of all my experience with the mutant vehicle owners and then I was looking for a job and Burning Man had a position uh managing internal tech support and folks may not realize it but there's a lot of tech that goes into managing Burning Man plus everybody who works for Burning Man you know theund 100 150 people who work for Burning Man year round all have computers and they need help with that and that was right up my alley So I started working for Burning Man and my first day you do an introduction and I said I've been doing DMV for 17 years I've been or this many years and I've been going for this many years. Um and there's a point I've just come to realize that you know I used to say I'm not a burner. I'm just a guy who goes to Burning Man. But when I start counting up and realizing that I've been doing this every year I volunteer my volunteer work with the DMV sometimes takes up to 30 hours a week. week on top of my day job, whatever that's been. And I now I now I now work for the man. I got to admit that, yeah, I am a burner. But the the actual, you know, the answer to your question of why do I still do this and why is it compelling to me is that for me, every year I see people come for the first time and I see see their eyes get wide. I see them like process this this this world that's there, this this environment, and I see it change them. And what I see, and we've talked about this before, I shared my my,

you know, Bern Burning Man has his 10 principles, but for me, Burning Man, if I boil down what I appreciate about Burning Man, it comes down to three things. I call them three pillars. Do them do with that what you want. film. But those three things are awe, inspiration, and community. I see people go out there and awe and wonder. Wonder is is a an experience that we we're really in touch with when we were a kid. When you're a kid, every you a little kid is so much in touch with their wonder at the world, they will walk up to their parent with a rock. in their hand and they'll go like, "Hey, Dad, look. Rock." "No, no, look rock. Wow. Isn't this the coolest? It's rock, man. I've given this rock forever. It's a rock and and other things. Tree. Wow. Look the bird. Look at whatever whatever it is. Kids are so much because they're absorbing, they're learning, they're seeing the world with literally fresh eyes. But as we get older, not only in ourselves but our our society and the world starts teaching us to not show your emotion, not not you know it becomes not be amazed at the world. It's be cool. Don't don't let them see you sweat. Don't show your feelings. You know, showing your feelings isn't cool. Showing that you're amazed by something isn't cool. And that translates into us, you know, acting like everything is just blasze um

dated. Got it.

Yeah. Or just or just we don't we don't we don't do things that that that are awe inspiring for ourselves, you know, act your age. There's so many things in our our phrases in our our lexicon that just say, you know, don't do that. Don't Yeah. Well, because ever since like we were talking about that, I was thinking about that and interesting kind of correlary to that is um well like people are kind of jaded. I mean like you've been around, you've been experienc I've been going to Birdman 30 years. I've seen everything, you know, but then you see something you've never seen before, you know, and then that just like oh I mean I think even to someone who's like older who's who's been around the block and has seen things when you come it's like that sense of awe something like oh wow wow I haven't seen that before and and especially like you know we're talking about the tens of thousands of people expressing their creativity and you come across something it's just like it's like well I'm 54 years old I've seen everything and turn around the corner and you're like, "Oh my god, what is that?" And then you and then you start looking at it and you examine every detail and you're just like, "Oh my god, I love how they welded this part. Like, I never would have thought of that." And then then it brings you to that second part, the inspiration, which is like, you know what, that gives me an idea.

I'm getting I'm getting so excited that I just knocked my my headphones off.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean to me I mean that's what still for me kind of keeps me back cuz it's like oh yeah yeah been there done that scene I mean like you said like it's part of the the cool oldtime veteran burner it's like oh yeah I'm so jaded you know but like you you see something and it sparks something and you're like you know what that gives me an idea and that and for me part of it is I look at the first timers that I that I see each year and from them that helps remind me especially if I get interrupt because I'm working out there

you know I am I am working all the time in fact my campmates you know my camp now has a bar. We run a bar and they and they often like go, "Hey, we've hardly seen you." Because I'm either doing some tech stuff or I'm doing mostly I'm doing the DMV stuff and I'm running bouncing between the two. Um but but for me, it's um it's it's seeing the impact it's having on these people who are like, "Wow." And I think it was my third or fourth year that I I had this epiphany. I said, "I know what what's what's being said in every car with a first timer as they're leaving the playa. Somebody in that car is say somebody in that car is saying next year I'm going to dot dot dot dot dot." Yeah.

Whatever that is. And seeing that and then over the years seeing what people bring the next year, seeing how people show up is just it's inspiring to me. And the last piece of that is those same people who go, they get gobsmacked at something they experience at Burning Man. And they get gobsmacked. And part of it is that that's that's I feel is mostly unique to Burning Man is they're seeing so much creativity and they're seeing that it's being done not by professionals, but by other people just like them. other people just like them got and usually got together with other people.

Yeah.

It's a group and like we made this thing. We made this cool thing and we made it as cool as we could. We made we made a giant version of the game of mousetrap.

We made we made a homemade roller coaster. You know, we made uh you know we made or something smaller. We just made a cool environment. for you to come in. One of my favorite early Burning Man's I think it was 97. I can't remember if it's 97 or 8, but these folks had a barber shop. It was a barber shop beauty salon. It was right on the esplanade and it was the whole backdrop of a barber shop with the mirrors and the the the sinks and everything and two two classic barber chairs. And they had a man and a woman at certain times of the day.

Uhuh.

They had a guy in a white you know, perfect white like 1958 barber uniform, thick black hair, combs in the pocket and a barber chair and then a woman with the other barber chair in a beehive in an outfit looking like a 1960s, you know, from a from a hairdresser. And they had these two huge Wheel of Fortunes and instead of numbers or dollar signs at each section was a like a drawing of a haircut. Like the man was like the executive, the Mohawk, the pompador, whatever. And they had this whole stick where they would announce, "And ladies and gentlemen, if you step right up to the wheel of fortune and you, you know, spin the wheel of fortune, we will give you the haircut that you land on." And it was all performance art, but they did it. And they literally had people go up, spin the wheel, and sit down. And they would they would do this pattern while they gave them a haircut or a hairdo on the open playa. This wasn't enclosed. This was just like

and it was it was brilliant and amazing and like

who thinks of this? But that's the kind of thing that it's it's unlike most large events. You know, you think about the large events you go to, it is a one to many proposition. If it's a concert, it's whoever's on stage and everybody else is is a spectac yeah spectator. Yes. You know it is a even if it's a you know it's a football game whatever it's a one to many proposition and this is a many to many proposition. People come and it's not one theme. I mean yes we have a theme but it's not one person's idea of what to create and what to share. It's 80,000 people's idea. And so that every year, every year, you know, inspires me and the fact that communities continue to be built around people's experiences there, it it it inspires people and that's the inspiration. So, you know, awe and wonder, inspiration, community, as long as those things are part of Burning Man, um the other part the other things and yeah, there's things that that aren't great and yeah, we can talk we could talk and we're not going to All the complaints that people have of dissing or not,

save that for social media. Yeah.

As long as as long as Burning Man continues to provide a an environment that inspires people, that helps people get back in touch with their with their sense of wonder that inspires people to build community. It will be compelling to me. And the last last thing I'll say, you know, I you know, I do have I do take part in a in a theme camp and we have a little bar, the Swiss Space Bar. Come by, get a get a gargo blaster drink.

Um, but you know, my contribution uh over the years I feel hasn't been, you know, the doing the art, but it's been the facilitating of the art.

Very important.

And I tell people all the time, you know, they say, "What's your best experience at Burning Man?" I will tell you, every year it'll be the second night that the DMV is open. And I will go up on uh on we have a little platform on top of the the DMV office and I will look at the line of cars with all their lights and and I look at all of the different things that these people have created. And I I I am I am aruck and so grateful. And I I mean right now I'm getting emotional talking about it because it's going in whatever little way I helped this happen. I helped this amazing kaleidoscope of of creativity come to this place and all these people sharing their creations with all of these other folks in Black Rock City. For me, you know, that's that's what keeps me coming back.

Well, facilitating, you know, helping someone else to radically express themselves, that that's that's a gift, you know, that's that's you gift giving back to other I mean like might be kind of an unsung kind of hero thing. People don't think about it too much. It's like you're just some bureaucrat with some papers, you know, but it's like no, like you said, like you're you're helping other people to express themselves. Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool. Um wow. Let me go now.

So yeah, any uh final words or uh let's see uh if you want anyone to reach you is is any way you want to give people Well, I mean, don't don't just blurt out your phone number, but uh

well, I do I do have if you're interested in I do have uh not every year, but 30 years of uh photographs from Burning Man uh on my website at chefjuke.com. ChefJ all one word. Uh uh folks can and my and my contact info is there so folks

Awesome. And then one well one final question I I just remembered.

Have Have you built any art cars?

I have helped I have helped other people build art cars. So I I mentioned earlier that I that I went back to school and got a machining degree.

Yeah.

Uh in 10 years ago I said, "Wow, gosh, I've been doing this DMV stuff for uh for a while now. I should really uh I should really build my own mutant vehicle." And I have the design for what I want to build. I mean, I have the the you know uh uh the inspiration image Mhm.

And I said, "Wow, but I've done some woodworking, but I really don't really think I have the skills to do that." And what I said is also, I need to build a shop.

Well, what happened was I built the shop and the shop became the project. And I haven't gotten to the mutant vehicle yet, but I now have in my twocar garage a little community maker space. It's that I share with about 30 people who all chip in a few bucks a month. And Right now, as we speak, I have two people down there working on uh working on a I think it's a light bar for their for their off-road vehicle, but I share my shop with again about 30 people when they want to work on things and help people out. I refurbish old tools and stuff. But I have I have most of the parts. I have a motor. I have some I have some wheels. I have some suspension parts. I just I I I haven't got the chassis is what I have to build. Um, so I'm closing in on that. My biggest challenge is my ADD. I keep getting other small projects that get in the way of of things. But my shop, I have a plasma cutter. I've got welders. I've got a water jet. I've got a whole bunch of to I've got enough tools to build a battleship. It's just a mount matter of uh the time and focus to actually clear the decks and build it. So, we'll see. Maybe not this year, but we'll aim for next year.

So, let me guess a giant jukebox with a chef's hat.

No.

Do you want the nest?

No, it it is it is uh it is a two-seater uh retro uh flying the jet jet car.

Oh, like Jetson's kind of thing.

Uh think think more Flash Gordon.

Oh,

more Flash Gordon like old school kind of art deco. Yeah. I'll send you a pick. My inspiration.

It's kind of like when you drive along be like, you know, wow, got this on a flash.

Oh, yeah.

Savior of the universe.

You got it. Right. So, we'll see. Coming coming to the fly someday. Hopefully soon.

All right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much and uh maybe we'll have you on again for another episode.

It' be a pleasure.

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