EP 27 Danger Ranger

Episode 27 the Season Premiere is out now. Meet Michael Mikel (aka Danger Ranger)  a foundational figure in the Burning Man community and a co-founder of the Cacophony Society. He details the movement’s origins in the Suicide Club, a 1970s group dedicated to living intensely through urban exploration and absurdist pranks. The narrative traces the evolution of these "experiences beyond the pale" from San Francisco beach burns to the establishment of Black Rock City, highlighting the transition from anarchic art projects to a large-scale organized event. Danger Ranger reflects on the philosophical shift toward growth, the creation of the Black Rock Rangers, and the enduring importance of reinventing reality in an increasingly impersonal, digital world.

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Transcript

Before we start, I would like to ask your help to do two things. First, tell a friend or two who you think might like the show. And second, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The more reviews the show gets, the more likely it will even appear in search results. Thank you, and now on to the show. 

They make the trek out to Burning Man for a week and a day. After a lot of work, oh, 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 been rearranged. That changes what this show is all about. You'll see the impact. of burning 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. No worries, it's that Andy. And today on our uh this is actually is going to be the the season premiere of season 2 at episode, we have the one, the only danger ranger or Michael Michael, what do you prefer to go by?

Well, I actually go by many names. Uh, in the Burning man community, of course, I am mostly known as Danger Ranger. Uh, I uh in the cacophony society, I have many aliases. Actually, the different events that I've done, I've I've counted 32 different aliases that I've used in different events.

So, okay. So, how how did Did it all begin with cacophony for you? Because before the man there was cacophony like for for you. So like what what

I I've I've always been interested in like the surreal and the absurd and uh playful and uh it was 1986 actually the same year that Larry started to burn on the beach that I encountered uh the beginnings of the cacophony society. I found this newsletter in in a grocery store south of market and it listed all these wonderful things that you could do during the month uh crazy events, gatherings, pranks and uh so I started going to these events and it was just at the very beginning of the San Francisco Cookoff Society which of course has its roots in an earlier uh organization called the suicide club uh which was started in 1972 by a man named actually four individuals. Uh Gary Warren was the primary driver uh who out of these people uh they they found themselves uh out at uh out at a pier uh in San Francisco with heavy waves washing upon them and they were holding on to the uh chain rail literally for their lives and it was an experience like none other and they felt so alive. And so they started this group called the suicide club whose purpose was to live each day as if it was their last.

And they did all kinds of wonderful things. Uh a lot of underground and urban explorations. Um and I heard about them in the late 70s I guess it was. Uh and I I heard rumors of the things that they were doing. But they were so far underground I couldn't make contact with them.

But eventually uh the suicide club disbanded in 1982 uh along with the death of its founder.

Oh wow.

And uh in 1986 a group of old suicide clubbers decided to kind of restart something and they called it the cacophony society. And I got heavily involved in that at the very beginning. Um I started to do events. The first event that I did uh I I was somewhat dismayed at the beginning because only four only six people showed up. Only six people showed up at this event, my first event, but the next morning, the next day, it was on the five o'clock news on TV. So I was certainly hooked. This is great.

What was the event? What' you guys do?

The event was uh the Ali North Shredding Party and uh that was a time that Oliver North was going around speaking about the Contra affairs and everything that was going on in the Middle East. And I had gotten some copies of these secret documents that were related to that. And Ali North was going to be speaking down on the peninsula of uh from San Francisco down in Redwood City at this amphitheater down there. And so there was this whole Iran Contraosta thing going on. And um so I I put in an an an announcement, a notice that we were going to shred secret documents the night before he was going to be speaking in his amphitheater. And uh we showed up with a an old RV And we we had a a shredding machine, electrical threading machine, and we're going to shred these documents and a couple bottles of champagne and I I thought it was going to be great fun. But also, uh I was involved with a lot of electronics recycling. My background is in Silicon Valley. And I had these little computer chips about a one inch square with some uh circuit boards with chips on them. And I uh stuck double-sided tape to the back of them. And I told the six people there, we are going to put these secret listening devices around the amphitheater doors and windows so we can record what he says. Uh so it was a infinite it was a instant fun and um these these these chips were out of copy machines actually that I had found. And we went around and we stuck them on the doors and windows uh that night uh around the amphitheater and then we proceeded to drink champagne and uh shred secret documents and that was all. We left went home. But sometime early in the morning the security service went around and they spotted these circuit boards and it was a bomb threat.

Bomb.

So they called out the bomb squad and the police were there and then the news showed up the next morning. and it became big thing. And I remember the sheriff of the county saying holding one of these circuit boards up and said, "We don't know what this is, but we're going to find out." And that was my first cacophony of it.

Wow. So that was uh 19

and and that was also the launch of my first uh alias name. I was Sergeant J FO just following orders. Uh also They bet we wear these pseudo military uniforms that we we had decorated to. So cacophony was all about pranks and costumeuming and uh doing these ridiculous things.

Yeah. Yeah. So I saw also like um you guys had uh would do like a dinner like in a bunker. There was some sort of like you all dressed in white and you painted a bunker all.

There was a lot of urban exploration intrusion events that we did. Uh we did a couple Uh we like to explore places that weren't being used.

Underground tunnels, uh military bunkers. Uh we did several events in in the old uh military bunkers out at Fort Funston

and uh also uh on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, there these military bunkers that had been built uh during World War II, you know, to to fight off the the uh Japanese invasion that was going to happen

down the West Coast.

And And so we found the ways to get into these places and we did events. Uh and the first one was called the Atomic Cafe and that was at uh Fort Funston over near Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. And uh John Law and I were very active in in working together on these things. And we found a way to get in and uh we managed to open this hatch, this small hatch uh which led down a ladder and inside and we put a fake lock on it so it would look like it was locked but only we knew how to turn the bolt to open it up.

Uhhuh.

And we organized event called the atomic cafe. And the scenario was it's the end of the world and the remnants the survivors were gathering together to uh have a a dinner together uh at the end of the world time. last summer

and we brought in a bunch of art students and they painted the whole inside with uh apocalyptic scenes and uh bombs falling. Uh we brought in uh round tables and chairs. We had checkerboard tablecloths. Uh we brought in a generator and we were playing duck and cover movies and we held this great dinner. And that was the first atomic cafe. Uh after that uh the second atomic cafe was was even more grand. Uh there was this abandoned military uh building, a sevenstory milit building owned by the government uh south of market near Townsen and a huge building, seven floors and a a basement. And we found a way to get into it, of course. And we organized the second atomic cafe. And in this one, we uh told everybody to meet at a bar. south of market. And so the night of the event came and there was about 55 people in the bar and we had rented a 24 foot U-Haul truck and we pulled up to the bar and we had everybody get into the truck and we closed the door and we drove several blocks uh to this building that was owned by the government which hadn't been used for 14 years. It was just abandoned. It had a giant rollup door drivein truck. door and we drove the truck into this and down into the basement. Uh we had lookouts uh spotters uh on the roof of the building across the street with radios advising us when it was safe to to go in and uh we had rigged this building and planned it weeks and weeks in events and got in there. We opened up the door and people climbed down the ramp out of the truck and there was a line of candles leading to this giant blast doors. And they all came up to these doors and we opened the doors and inside was a live band playing with laser lights and a fog machine and uh tables and music dance. It was just crazy.

So, how many people did you stuff in the back of this truck?

Uh 55 for that one.

And then uh

no idea where they were going and they just

No. And and We had taken the generator and we ran the exhaust into the plumbing so it would exhaust send the exhaust uh uh up several floors out to the roof stacks so we wouldn't you know have a problem with exhaust

and we had a great time and after the event loaded them all up in the truck closed the door and drove them out to this day they don't know where they were at.

That's awesome. Was that also 1986 or this was roughly around similar.

Oh, that was 80. I'd have to look. 87.

Yeah,

I think it was that was when I Yeah. 87 88 I started getting very active. And all the the there were three atomic cafes and the third one they were all within a year. And the third one was even larger and more people and a bigger building over in the East Bay. Uh we found out on the fringe of Berkeley there was this abandoned tooth pace factory. There's a complex of buildings uh with underground and uh we brought in I it took two trucks loads of people to bring them in this time and we brought them in again to this bunker. First they went through this courtyard and they went down through a hatch and the hole in the ground and inside was music bands. We brought in couches and furniture. Uh we we had transformed the the underground environment into a a performance space basically.

How would people find out about this? Get involved.

H

how would people find out about it and get involved?

Uh the comedy site we put out a monthly newsletter. Um this has actually been going on. The suicide club produced a monthly newsletter too. Uh but it was very small and uh very secretive. And the suicide club actually grew out of a a group called university, a free uh university in San Francisco. It was a it was a class to begin with

which became suicide club.

And so there was a monthly newsletter that Graphan would put out and it was called rough drafts because it was a rough draft of what was happening. And uh I got involved. I eventually became the newsletter the uh I eventually became the editor of the newsletter and I began to push uh cacophony outward. I thought we were doing such wonderful things that more people should get involved. And unlike the suicide club, I decided that the cacophony society should be open to everyone and uh anyone who showed up could attend. So I began to promote uh the cacophony society.

Mhm.

And even to the point where I thought, you know, this this should be happening in other cities. So I launched the Los Angeles Cacophony Society. uh at a time when I was working down there. I was a contractor working with uh computer systems with Calrans and uh I started the LA Cacophony Society by printing a their first monthly newsletter with a list of these incredible events that had already happened because it was an expired newsletter, but I put them out there so people would see that. Oh darn, I missed this. I should have been there.

And so all of a sudden people started showing up to the next one and I got I found somebody who showed up. Uh his name was Al Ryenower and he became known as Reverend Al

and he became the leader of the Los Angeles Cacopony Society and then uh we expanded even further. We had a Seattle cacophony society, a Portland cacophony society, New York, Houston, And we even got to London. There was a London cacophony society.

London.

So the idea of cacophony spread and it was all about doing things that were outside the normal boundaries. The cuc society was a randomly gathered network of free spirits united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society. That was our motto.

Wow.

But la cacophony took it to the next level. Uh, Reverend Al did some of the most incredible pranks that you can ever imagine. Uh, they did an event called Cement Cuddlers. Uh, they went to a Toys R Us store and they bought a half a dozen teddy bears, little teddy bears, and they took the stuffing out and they poured wet cement in them and then sewed them back up. and they made a a a tag to go with them complete with the barcode which could be read by their machines to the checkout counter. And this uh this this tag said something like uh "Oh little child, do not let my soft exterior fool you because inside I am hard as a rock like you must also become as you grow up." And uh to top this off, they went to they put these in different Toys R Us stores and then they went to a Toys R Us store and they attempted to buy one. They took this cement cuddler complete with a tag, you know, it says cement cuddler and all that on there. And uh the person at the cash register said, "Well, I I don't know this. What is this?" And finally then somebody pretended to drop it on their toe and it banged onto the floor. Then the manager was called And then the district manager was called and it was it was it was one of the amazing events that Reverend Al organized. Another one he did was at the old Chuck-E-Cheese uh pizza parlor.

Oh yeah.

Used to be everywhere. Uh he banded himself up all as a burn victim and uh went crazy around the the big rat that they had in there.

And uh so that that was really it's amazing things.

Eventually uh in 1988 I heard about I was in San Francisco and I heard about some people who were going to go to the beach and burn a wooden man on the solstice. And uh I heard this through the network of friends that I had in San Francisco. And I assumed it was some kind of pagan event because it was on the solstice, you know, fire and solstice. Uh, so I showed up there and uh, it wasn't a pagan event. It was Larry Harvey and Jerry James doing this kind of dada art project of creation and destruction.

All right. Before we go any further, I just want to make clear to the listeners like you're not talking as a spokesman of of the Bernie man project or organization or anything. These are just your stories.

My stories. These are the stories that that I have lived. Uh, I am not representing Burning Man in this case. And all my opinions are my own.

Exactly. All right. Anyway, let's proceed.

The disclaimer.

Maybe we should do that in the beginning. Anyway,

I I've always been known for pushing the boundaries.

And I've gotten into some trouble for it.

What?

Oh, yeah.

Anyway, so you show up at Baker Beach. It was

Yeah. And it it was fun. And I and I thought, well, uh we should we should do this and I should uh So, I decided The next year I I kept in touch with Larry and uh the next year they were going to do it again and so I listed it as an event in the monthly newsletter

in June. It was on June 22nd on the solstice and uh all of a sudden our our newsletter uh had a subscription uh uh uh of about 600 at that time. So we had a pretty broad reach. So uh instead of the 20 people who showed up at the second burn uh in 1987 for 88.

So 20 people in 88 and then how many people after you put

So 89 is when I listed it in the newsletter and all of a sudden 200 people showed up. Uh and lariat also the first uh man on the beach was about seven feet tall. Kind of a cobbled together wooden figure look like kind of a as much like a giant grasshopper as a man. Uh but the next year he made it uh I think it was 15 feet tall and the year after it was 20 feet tall and finally uh 19 when I listed in the cacophony society newsletter uh the man was 30 feet tall and uh all of a sudden cacophony poured out to the beach event.

That was 1989

1989. And uh they they had some structural problems. The the man actually broke about midweist uh and we we we burned him anyway. But uh we had radios and we were looking for the police to show up and uh so we we set fire to before the authorities could arrived. Uh there was no permit, no outlaw. We were we were all outlaws, if you will. And then and 19 1990 again listed in the Cucopia Society uh newsletter and we were also involved now with helping building the man doing this stuff. And of course Larry because of my conduct was also showing up at cacophony events and he was at the la the the last atomic c Atomic Cafe number three and did an incredible speech to a crowd that assembled below uh talking about the end of the world and how our cities are decaying. Somewhere there is a copy of that talk that speech that he gave. Uh he was on a balcony underground into this giant crowd of people.

Wow.

And it was really really really amazing. So he was involved and was showing up to cacophony events. and at our parties. And so there was this merging of cacophony and burning man. And uh finally in 1990 we showed up on the beach with about 800 people and the authorities came and said you can't do this here. There's you no permit. And we'd had the man was erected. And so Larry negotiated with him for a while and said okay we'll make a deal. let us have a party around the man and we won't burn him. And that's what we did. Uh the crowd almost rioted because they wanted to burn him in. Of course, the two cops looked around and saw these hundreds of people and uh they left after the agreement. Uh but uh we kept our word and we did not burn them in. So we took the man back apart, took him back up the beach and we put it in storage uh at uh in this parking lot. over on 11th Street in San Francisco. And not knowing what to do, what do we do now? We got this wooden man. Uh but it was a few weeks later, we were at a party uh at this old Victorian house on Golden Gate. It was a it was a legendary place. Incredible cultural uh connections were made at this. The parties we had were were amazing there. And someone brought over a videotape of this event. that took place on this vast dry lake bed place like we've never seen before and it was a video of a croquet game only the croquet ball was 8 feet in diameter and for mallets they were using pickup trucks and we looked at that and we said we could burn the man out there. So a few weeks later few weeks later On Labor Day weekend, we loaded the man into a rental truck and drove out to the Black Rock Desert. There was uh maybe less than 90 of us at the first event in the Black Rocker Desert and we pulled down off of the asphalt onto the dry lake bed and I had everybody get out of their trucks and cars and I took a stick and I drew a line on the ground and I said on the the other side of this line, everything will be different. We all then stepped across that line together. And that was the beginning of going out to the Black Rock Desert and burned the man. We went way drove way up there in the north. We set up the man and camped out and burned the man on Sunday night. Went back.

So I take RVs and gigantic generators. laser.

Yeah. Yeah.

None of that.

And John Lock worked in a in a neon company fixing neon. So he had all this extra neon. So he arranged neon around the bottom of the man first man in 1990 as kind of a decoration. Uh but then the next year we again it was listed the cacophony society newsletter and uh we were beginning to reach out more and more about burning men. what was happening. And uh next year 1991, there was man there was neon on the man and it was like a giant beacon. You could see it for miles and it really attracted people. Um with my background in uh electronics technology, I created the first Burning Man mailing list, digital list with computers. Uh I begin to print out labels and we begin to bail out stuff and Burning Man grew and grew. It literally more than doubled each year.

So, you guys weren't the only group of people out there at the Black Rockck, right? Wasn't there Desert Sight Works and like with Pepe Ozan and other people doing

uh we uh

had that.

There were groups out there. There were sailing land sailor events that were there before we were uh There was also a group of people from Berkeley that were doing bizarre events like uh they had a golf tournament. They would spray the the greens with green food coloring and they would play golf out there. So there were some absurdest events that were kind of happening out there. Uh there was also an event uh the wind sailors they did a race where people made uh wind sailors out of weird things like shopping carts and beds and stuff, put sales on them and did events. Uh but as we came out there, we began to attract more and more people in activities. Uh the first Pepe Aison came out uh with us and did what was the first lingum. Uh I'd have to look up see when that was. It was 1993. three or four and he built this wire mesh sculpture and covered it with m mud, filled it up uh with firewood and uh set it on fire one night and amid a group of performers around it and that really grew into what was called Pepe's opera that would burn on the night before the man burned. And uh that went on several years and each time the it got larger and larger and the point and there were seven there were uh 200 performers dancing in this uh orchestrated uh script. Yeah. 200 people that they would dance and they would do this elaborate performance on some theme around the the fire temple. Uh he Pepe would write these literally operas, these scripts, and they would have groups of performers that represented different cults, cult different cults that would do dances of some sort. And on the stage, on the the sculpture, they would have these acts and scenes that would play and it was a elaborate opera. And then when he stopped doing that, that tradition continued as the temple that itself and the temple became its own thing as as a place where you remembered those who had departed.

Yeah. Well, because back then I guess the the man burned on Sunday, right? And then so Pepe's opera was Saturday.

Yes. Pepe's opera was Saturday.

Yeah. And then like later on the man became Saturday and then Temple became Sunday. So yeah, so this happened for a number of years and and yeah, the numbers grew like d basically doubles each year. right until uh I guess one of the big early

1995 we were reaching a crisis actually 94 uh and and we started trying to charge you know tickets sell tickets to the event and uh we didn't have any way to really enforce people coming uh but it was a challenge so two points was one was cash flow was a problem because we were we were spending more and more and hundreds of portage potties the cost of the man and the structures. Uh, and so I put in a system where if you bought a ticket early, it was cheaper, but if you waited until just before the event, the price was much higher. Uh, also our staff was really, uh, being strained to manage the organization. And what I figured out is, uh, a system where, uh, you give people the the the responsibility and the authority for an area or department and so they became uh responsible for uh not only what they were doing but for growing their own department. So it grew the then the departments begin to scale up and uh the the the we were we were raising the ticket prices to hold the the attendance down. So the uh the organization be growth began to grow to match uh a growth rate of about 15 to 20% per year in the in the in the mid 90s.

Yeah. So then uh what happened in 1986?

Uh 1996.

Oh 96. Sorry.

Yes. 9096 was was the the real dramatic uh year where we started to push it into chaos. It was literally I mean people were driving around every which way in the dust. Uh 96 was really stressful. We had something like seven vehicle crashes, interactions. Uh nobody was seriously hurt, but uh in one case a truck with uh 55gallon drums of water was roaring across the playa and hit another car. And you can imagine what a barrel full of water tumbling across the play was. Water is 8 pounds per gallon.

Yes. Yes.

55 gallons. 55 time 8 times how many?

But the real uh crisis was of course the death of Michael Fury. Uh it was a few days before the uh the event was officially opened. He was working on the crew. He was a neon artist and uh he had been at Bruno's drinking and uh he just he rode a motorcycle and he went was going to go back to the camp for Bruno in Gerlock and he was intoxicated. Uh his friends tried to convince him to uh not ride his motorcycle, but he insisted and he uh drove out to the plot on the way out to the the the campman and he started play there was a a slowmoving van, several vehicles going and he started playing chicken with his van with this van. He would ride his motorcycle up close and veer off and he did did that several times and then the last time he just cut it too close and he collided with the van.

Really sad.

So that was the big trauma. And then uh during the event there was a car that uh hit a tent. Uh the the rave camp was about a mile uh north of the main encampment. And so you had this driving back and forth. And uh there was another case where an intoxicated driver uh had ran over a tent and severely injured a couple of people.

So, just something for the because there's some listeners who've never been to Burning Man or a lot of like newer listeners. Um when you guys first went out in 1990, it wasn't a rave that you had. You might have had like boom boxes or something, but you know, there was no DJ or anything. So,

yeah, there wasn't no Eventually some DJ showed up Turbo Ted in I think 1992 uh showed up with a with a boom box and uh

like actual like DJ like what we would know now is like you know

I mean not quite like you know what

it wasn't but about a year later that Goa Gill showed up with a full-blown DJ outfit and played to a massive crowd of 30 people and It was impressive that he came out here, really loved it. But in the early days, it was just kind of a large camp out. Uh uh first real theme camp, I guess, was Peter Dodie and Christmas camp in 1993. But we were just kind of camped out and hung out together and shared drinks and stuff. And it was really interesting with the locals because, you know, Nevada and Gerlock was on the frontier of of the West

and uh They would see all these freaks and weirdos drive through their town. This little town of Gerlock. Uh the population in Gerlock was about 200 at the time.

200, right? 200.

And uh they would see all these people drive through town with Kirk. They would see all these people drive through town with colored hair, tattoos all over, and piercings everywhere. And then they would see them go out to the desert and they would burn this giant wooden man and they said, "Well, they're a bunch of Satanists. That's what they are." And uh we we finally figured out a way to get in with the locals, you know. Uh we we were somewhat liberal-minded. We we all had firearms. And uh we we came up with this idea of an event that we would invite the locals to. We uh did something called the drive by shooting in which we uh this was did this out at the edge of the mountains so there's a safe background. But we set up these stuffed toy animals along this road and we would drive by them and shoot them uh from the back of pickup trucks and in cars and the the locals came along and they thought this was great fun.

What year was that?

Well, you know,

the early

There's still a bunch of Satanists, but they're Satanists with guns, so they're okay.

There are kind of Satanists. So we got in go with the locals and they started coming out and they became one of us and uh it was great. So we merged really good with the local culture.

Probably just took a couple years, right?

Yeah. Mhm.

Wow. So then after 96 and I guess uh Brainy Man started to professionalize and like 97.

Yeah. Well 96 was a breakup. John Law having come out of the suicide club always they always like to do small events and

and everybody was responsible. uh and he felt responsible for everybody attended. Uh I was seeing what Bernie man was how Bernie man was affecting people and I said this this is amazing more people should experience but John wanted to end the event he said we shouldn't do many Burning Man anymore people are getting hurt and so he left the organization sadly so it was this philosophical divide between him and Larry and myself. I I I was always progrowth, you know. I I wanted to

spread this idea out there. So, uh I was I was with the progrowth. So, Larry and I continued to do Burning Man after John left.

Yeah. Well, 1996 1997, that's was a long time ago.

Yeah. The interesting thing after the the horrific year of of 96, uh the the the government was not going to give us a permit. So, we We looked around and we found this large ranch uh nearby. It was just over the hill in in a place called Walapai Valley and it was private property. It was a ranch. But there was a small play adjacent to this ranch. Uh the player was about five miles diameter and we said, "Well, we could, you know, we could have the event there next to this player. It was owned by by the government, but the nearby land was a private property. It was a it was a ranch. But I was looking at the map uh of this ranch and I noticed there was this one square that jutted out 20 acres onto this flya. And I said, you know, we could have an event and we could burn the man on this corner of the playa and it would be private property. So that's that's what we did. Uh we and we rented the the fly hot springs, too. Uh the ranch owner charges us $200 and uh it was amazing. I I saw 200 two or 300 people in the water at one time in the big pool. It was an amazing site. 300 acre people in this giant hot springs pool. So we did the the the we did Burning Man 1997 on a ranch. adjacent to the small player and everybody would run around on the player. But the unique thing about the location was there was only two roads in. There was a barrier. There was fences, gates, and natural obstacles. Uh there was a couple of local cowboys that tried to come in from the far side and their truck hit the the mud and was stuck there during the whole event. So there was no way to sneak in. So we had complete control and access. Uh one of our B friends, a burner uh Larry Breed who uh whose name was Ember uh was very concerned about the environment and in 1995 he uh did this test. He set up a a a couple hundred feet of orange fencing netting to catch down wind debris. as an experiment. And so after the successful event of uh 1997, which we had a new authority to deal with was the county, which was another drama in itself. Uh the county charged Burning Man $320,000 for needed fire services. They had to bring out their own uh fire department, their own fire trucks. We had our own fire department, our own fire trucks, but it didn't matter to them, but they wanted a firetruck there just in case. So, there were 55 firefighters out there enjoying Burning Man getting paid for it. And uh the sheriff was concerned about not getting the county's money, so he sent uh deputies out to collect all the money coming in at the gate. And that turned out to be a whole PR nightmare for the county. And uh finally, After the event, we we found out they overcharge us by more than $100,000 and we got that money back. But we uh the next year we got an approval for the from the government to do the event again on the Black Rockck. And this time we put up an orange fence around the entire event before the event so we had control of access and that was the big thing. And was that the same footprint as it is now or is it like like a basically

it has grown a little bit but it's pretty much the same footprint. Uh it's seven miles across.

Seven miles. Okay.

Uh in the early days it took a week to set up the fence. Now they do it in one day. The fence crew. It's amazing.

Well, I'm sure there's more volunteers nowadays.

And now we have whole departments that have grown uh and One of the departments that uh was really unique in in 1992 uh I started a group called the Black Rockck Rangers. Uh the event in 1992 was you know was way out on the far end and the instructions that you got with your ticket were get off the Playa, drive down this rudded road for 16 miles, turn right and go another 2 point three miles and there's the camp. But of course, if you missed it by a couple of degrees, you went veering off into the desert and would get lost in the north end and especially at night. So, uh I bought uh six used citizens van radios and I had five friends and we would go out and we would look for people out in the desert that were lost. We'd see somebody playing driving around and we would pull up and oh, you're looking for Bernie man. Okay, follow me. And then we would go across the desert at 80 miles an hour and take them back to camp. So that was the first job of the Black Rock Rangers was finding lost souls and bringing them back to camp. And of course once we had the fence up, the the focus became more internal in resolving disputes and helping people. And that was the beginning of the Black Rockck Rangers 1992.

And uh once we had the fence up. We we had a a gate that we could control access to. Uh we we had perimeter uh departments that that drove around and protected the perimeter. Uh and uh but it was still a challenge. Uh you know, people would would crash in the through the fence and sneak in.

And uh in the year 2000, u I came up with this idea. Uh the Black Rockck Desert is is is is literally a vast dry lake bed. And I was thinking this is kind of like a giant sea and like ships in the sea that have radar. We could use a a ship's radar to scan the rising. And so in the year 2000, I set up the first radar on a tower and we begin to scan the city around scan the horizon around Black Rock City and we could pick up cars first 10 miles away. We could pick up somebody walking to the fence

walking.

And after that, it was almost impossible to sneak in to Burning Man.

I'm sure it became a challenge for some people.

It did. One of the most interesting uh uh uh sneakins uh was uh you know, people would often try to hide somebody in the luggage compartment or

underneath a truck or something, but the the the most amazing one. There was a circus performer called Rubber Boy and he was thin and he could fold himself up and he folded himself up into a suitcase.

Wow.

That was three feet wide, two and a half feet wide and maybe 12 in high sitting on the front seat of a car. And the gate crew did not look inside that suitcase.

Well, How did you find out about it now after all these years?

Oh, it the story got out. I think I think it was hilariously funny actually. Yeah.

Well, no. I mean, I think if anybody successfully got through like that story must become legendary.

Oh, yes. Yeah. There are so many legends at Burning Man.

I heard of stories of people like crawling on the ground like for for miles and they're just like watching it on the radar and they're like, "Yep, he's like three feet closer."

Oh, yeah. And more tech technology we added too was night vision. We we could we would drive around the perimeter. I loved working perimeter. It was so much fun. And we would cruise around slowly at night wearing night vision goggles with all the lights off. And I remember uh the the the radar control was saying, "Oh, we've got a group of people out by the gravel. There's they're coming in. Uh looks like about 20 people on foot and Uh, I went up and cruising in the dark. I could see them. They couldn't see me. And I got within 50 yards and I turned on the headlights and the spotlights on my truck.

And they all turned around and started running out the back out. It was so funny.

I mean, do people still attempt it to this day or

almost never now? Uh, there was another another incident and again it was when I was on patrol. And uh I I got a notice on the radio. There's appears to be a couple out on the edge. They're they're walking in. And uh I pulled up and turned on my lights and they were just kind of crouched down on the playa. And I walked up to them. Oh, you're trying to sneak into Burning Man. And said, "Well, we we don't have that much money." But I looked and they were circus performers and they had these bags of costumes. And I said, "You're the kind of people who should be at Burning Man." Put them in my truck and I drove them into the city myself and say, "Here, go ahead, make your contribution." So, the thing you need to keep in mind is for all the rules and regulations that that I have made, I've probably broken almost that many, too. There needs to be grace. There needs to be understanding about why we make rules and what's the purpose of them and whether the rule is getting in the way of something good.

Yeah.

And it's something I've always tried to make staff understand why they're doing what they're doing. Uh yes, we have a lot of rules, but try to remember and understand why a rule was created and what the purpose of it originated.

There's a rule reason for every world. So after all these years and everything you've done and you started the Rangers and brought you drew the line that everyone like stepped across like what's your involvement nowadays?

Uh I uh primarily enjoying the event. Uh I'm I'm on the board of directors and uh I involved with high level decision making. Uh and my main role is uh that of a I guess a senior elder. Uh I am a spokesman. I do interviews. I talk to the press and uh I occasionally give uh talks and lectures.

Do you ever go out in uh perimeter patrols anymore or

uh not so much anymore?

Well, okay. I think now it's point of interview. Um I want to talk about like your background. So like where did you grow up? I remember you you posted something on the internet years ago. So like You grew up in Texas?

Yes. Yes, I did grow up in Texas. So, uh, I have this Texas background, uh, the West Freedom, riding horses.

So, like rural Texas.

Huh?

Rural Texas, like a like a

uh primarily rural. Uh, I grew up in this several places in and around Texas. Uh, southern Texas, uh, San Antonio, Uh I uh my adolescent and teenage years I was uh out in a small town in a very wooded area. It was lots of trees and water. Uh it was 20 miles from the city limits. Uh but since that time the city limits has completely encompassed this little town that I uh was a teenager at.

Yeah. Sure you learned something that outdoor uh

and and I was uh the thing about Texas wide spaces there's challenges to because your friends were so far away usually. So, uh transportation getting there. So, I very very much a fan of the automobile vehicle. Uh my first car was a 1948 Chevrolet when I was a kid. 15 years old I got my first car. I had a driver's license at 15 which you could do in the state of Texas at that time.

You still do?

That meant when I was driving the car there was No adult in the car at all.

Wow. Was the drinking age 18 or something?

Huh?

Was the drinking age 18 back then too or

or was it

uh the drinking age? Well, if you were with your parents, you could drink at any age. Uh but the age the age was 21.

Ah,

the thing about Texas then at the time I was growing up and even not too long after is that you could drink and drive as As long as you weren't drunk,

you could drive with a beer in your can. It was not in your car. It was not illegal. As long as if you got stopped, you could prove that you weren't.

Yeah. How did the test work?

Crazy idea. But but the laws have changed.

Is it just like a subjective, you know, it's like, ah, sure. Phil was like, well, I think you had one too many this time.

Well, I was driving a tractor when I was eight years old, so my grandfather's tractor, you know.

So, how long did you live in Texas for? Like when at what point Did you move out to California?

Uh I came out uh in the service uh actually in the mid to late 60s.

Oh, what where where did you how did you serve? Like what branch?

I did service in the the Navy uh out of uh the Bay Area and uh I went to Vietnam.

Oh, really?

Yes. I'm a Vietnam veteran. And that was crazy. It was like apocalypse. you know, and I started out very pro-military, but by the time I got out, I was against the war based on

What was your job like? What was your special? What did you do?

I uh was in primarily a ships navigation. So, uh we once went into the Gulf of Honken and lob shells into the jungle at an unseen enemy. It's bizarre.

Wow. So, were you what do they call blue water? Was it like out in the ocean or did you actually like kind of go more like inland.

Yeah. Blue water primarily uh ship that I was on. But uh

Wow.

I remember once we stopped in the middle of Pacific Ocean and went swimming.

Really?

It was such a bizarre feeling. You get off this ship and the bottom is a mile below you

just black.

You're swimming out there and there's nothing out there and you know that this ship is your only chance of survival. And also there's big fish down here. You don't know what might pop up. Oh yeah. So, how many years were you in the service for?

Uh, I was in six years.

And when I got out was uh it was a time of the whole uh cultural shift was happening. Uh I grew my hair long. I worked in the tech industry and gotten very involved with counterculture in the Bay Area. So that kind of led you into your like cacophony years. Yeah.

Yes. It was kind of a nice leader in that. Uh I read a lot of interesting things. The thing that really uh affected my worldview the most was uh I discovered the uh the city lights bookstore and I got a copy of Alan Ginsburg's how this epic poem was written in 19 56 and it's a poem about uh America and everything and I forever will have the opening line from that poem embedded in my brain. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.

So I got very involved with the counterculture the Bay Area and started doing cacophony events, pranks.

Yeah. Led out to the Black Rock.

Also involved with a group called the Billboard Liberation Front.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is that part of

at night and we would change the message on boards next to busy freeways. It was It was a lot of fun. Mostly absurdist comments,

but we were we We organized a whole team to do this and we would do payups on billboards and we'd change the message to something bizarre, strange or some commentary about the the world.

A version of that kind of persisted like in the Burning Man years, right? Like remember telling people to to

Yeah. A lot of that

change logos kind of

that ethics it it was counter it was a we tend to be anti-consumer. You know, we we were we we were against conspicuous consumption.

The idea we here in America, we have this giant consumer industry which we're gobbling up the earth's resources and destroying the planet uh all for the next newest thing. And so it was kind of a rebellion against that attitude. Uh even in uh the the cacophony society, a lot of the ideas that came out of that uh I I still do get most of my clothing from thrift stores. A big thrift store shopper. Uh and you you don't live in the Bay Are

My car is 50 years old, you know.

Yeah. Sadly, I had a Toyota Tacoma with 185,000 miles on it that I just got uh rearended and I

four new tires, four new brakes. I was like, I'm taking this to 300,000 or more. And then I got rear ended and now it's gone.

Of course, the the the whole car culture thing was a part of that. Uh when I was

just at the beginning of Burning Man, um uh and it was 1989, the uh LMA Pria earthquake hit San Francisco. And the day after I was walking around hate street hate ashberry area and I came upon this green oz stand that was crushed by a brick wall, the back of it, giant pile of bricks on it. And I looked at it and said, you know, I think that thing could still run. And so I left a note on the on the car and uh a couple weeks later I got a call from the owner said, uh, do you still want this car? It's at the junkyard. They're going to cut it up. I said, no, no, don't. And So, I gave the guy, I think, $100 for it.

Wow.

And I went and retrieved the car and uh the engine, the drivetrain was okay, but the right behind the driver's seat was smashed. You could only lie down in the back seat. And the spare tire in the trunk was permanently embedded in the crushed trunk. And so, I got a hold of this car and uh I took the car, I got it title on it, and uh I took the I took the car down to Earlsh Painters and I had them paint the entire thing brand new paint job, same color of green. And I went to DMV and I got a license plate of the time of the earthquake 4 p.m. And that became the earthquake car. And I drove it all over San Francisco. Uh, so many people thought it was funny, hilarious. But people that were so invested with the newest Detroit toy car were really uh embittered about it. I had a guy in a BMW, get that off the road. I drove around for five years. It was in parades. It was in in a film. Uh and I drove it to Burning Man in 1991. So it technically was the first art car at Burning Man.

Do you still have or is it still around?

I still have it. It's still in my backyard in Reno.

It's funny cuz uh I lived me and my wife live we lived in San Francisco like 94 to 2001 and I remember she worked down in South of Market. It was like near the Cal Train station and I I think before I even went to Burning Man, I remember seeing that car parked there on the side of the road. I was like look at that.

You connected with uh Blank and he was he was the guy that had decorated this uh Volkswagen bug uh called Oh My God. And uh he was the son of uh Lesbank the uh filmmaker. And so all of a sudden this whole art car movement coalesed became a thing and uh we were doing art car events stuff and then the whole Bernie man art car movement took off also.

Yeah. Wow. So, okay, I guess we're getting to the last question. Uh, the impact and influence of Burning Man on you and your life. I mean, so I mean, I don't know if it's been half of your life or I mean, definitely if you

pretty much consume my I've literally given my life to it, too, cuz I

Yeah. Why some some of the youngsters say today is this is all just a big party, right?

It's it has changed a lot, but it's still the most incredible thing that's happening. It's you go to a place apart, a completely strange, bizarre environment. And it's it it shifts people's view of reality in that going out there, it it tears your established view of reality away and enables you to reinvent yourself. And I think that's that's an amazing thing and it's really important and needed this day and age.

Yeah. And I mean, you will be involved for the the rest of your time, right? I mean, you don't see I've done that

as much as I can.

Yeah, this is not a bucket list thing for you, right? Um, let's see. Uh, anything else? Any final words? Anything you want to talk about? Well, I also know that, uh, as of late, like some people have, uh, we've been a little bit of a hot button issue like on the social medias, you know, for We we are in interesting times. Uh I've never seen such conflict uh in in our world in the world of politics. And uh I I think I'd blame a lot of that on the internet. Uh the challenge we have today is that literally too many people believe things that are just not true. Uh there are people that have completely opposing views of the same reality and there's these mental constructs that people have created in their mind and uh largely influenced by their their selfbias whatever and they're fed so much false information and now with AI you cannot tell what's real

yeah

anymore

yeah

you can watch a video and emotional

yeah

but then there can be a narrative associated with that video to fool people into believing something was this way or that way

yeah And uh they are going to extremes these days. I mean they just the belief systems are just crazy.

Well, for one of the things for me I've seen like in social media like people kind of get siloed, you know, and like the algorithms just kind of feed them the information that just kind of reinforces what they

Absolutely. And that particularly true in mainstream media there. Yeah. I mean, you cannot believe mainstream media at all anymore.

Yeah.

And uh I think the only place you can you can find alternative views is is on Twitter X. Uh I mean there there's a whole blue sky thing that's off, but it's it's like uh a cone of silence around them. They're all just talking to themselves.

Yeah.

I think kind of silence the only place you can really get information.

Yeah.

And you get a lot of false information, too. So it's it's it's a challenge finding out what is real.

But another what I do is I try to cultivate contacts that I know and trust and form this net truth and that's where we find where things are real and what we can believe in.

Yeah. And I mean another thing I've been thinking about was just like how kind of like impersonal like social media and the internet can be and like when someone's just like a name or a number you know it's like you could be as cold as impersonal as possible but something like being on the playa you know it's like you're you're physically in the same place with somebody like who you've never met before and you know it's like radical inclusions like we welcome the

that's one of the wonderful things about Burning Man and I think a cure for the problems that we have is that when you're on the play you're there in person and real you you can be real

as real as wearing a tutu or wearing some absurd costume can be but it's still real and partial so that's a a big uh positive point for for being at Burning Man or being at one of many regional events around the world.

Oh yeah. Could you imagine an event on the Playa where like some people get together and like reenact or like they read some sort of like stream from social media like something from some Facebook flame war and then they like they they have the script and they I mean just in real life, you know, it's like that would be pretty absurd. I want to see you at theme camp for that.

Flameware camp.

Yeah. I mean that just because like when you're actually

No, they're making a space balls too. The movie.

Oh, yeah. That's true.

All right. Well, uh I think we've been going. So, yeah. Any um any final words? Anything any plugs for anything? Uh any projects you're working on or people been to Burning Man event, I say go with no expectations.

And would you suggest people go to Black Rockck City for their first time or like try out a regional first or or wherever they can get in?

Wherever they can get in.

Yeah. And uh if anybody wants to reach you like email or do you have any way you want to give out I mean don't give out your personal phone number but

Well, Well, I am on Facebook uh as danger_ ranger and it uh on on my uh primary page it lists my Twitter X account and also my blog. I have a interesting blog that I post to from time to time.

Oh yeah.

Well, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful interview and And uh

well, let me see. I can call up the blog.

Oh, okay. Is that the uh the end of the world one or or no, that's the different thing?

No. Oh, I have many subgroups on Facebook. Uh lots of silly groups. You can join a lot of weird stuff.

If we go to danger_ranger on Facebook.

Yes. Right. He's just licking it up. But, uh, yeah. Well, I look forward to seeing you on the PLA this year. I wasn't thinking I was going to be there, but, uh, going to make it there. Maybe at the the Renegade Burning Man Philosophical Center.

All right.

Yeah, there's a lot of interesting groups out there. Discussion on social media, Facebook.

Okay. All right. Well, I'll put in the show notes. I mean, I guess for the listeners, if you want to get in touch with Danger Ranger, go to danger_ranger at Facebook and uh you'll find everything you need there.

Yes, indeed.

Thank you so much for the interview.

Okay. And thank you for doing what you do.

Thanks.

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