EP 29 Diva Marisa

Episode 29 with Diva Marisa is out now. Meet Marisa who first heard about Burning Man as a 12 year old girl living in the bay area by reading about it in a Cacophany Society newsletter. She first hit the playa in 1999 to sing in Pepe Ozan’s opera. Death Guild has been a San Francisco club since 1993, and the themecamp Death Guild/Thunderdome was founded by David King. In 2002 Marisa sang at the first SF decompression and in 2003 she started with Velocity Circus. In 2004 she started working in leadership for Death Guild/Thunderdome which she has been involved in ever since. In 2008-9 she started singing on the trapeze at Thunderdome. Marisa is a trained operatic singer, has been involved with running the show at Death Guild/Thunderdome for a long time, and she has an incredible story. She highlights the power of intentional community, illustrating how a "tight-knit family" of misfits uses the grueling labor of the playa to build lasting fellowship and leadership that transcends the event itself. Please give it a listen today.

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Transcript

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They make the trick 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. a 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. That nameless wasteland warrior. No, it's just that Andy. Today, our guest is the one and only the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla, the mayor of of Thunderdome, Diva Marisa, welcome.

Oh, that's not how you say my name.

Oh, how okay.

(Mareesa)

Marisa. Diva Marisa. Oh, that's better.

It's way better.

Oh, yeah. It rhymes.

Oh, I'm not.

There's a whole story about how Steven Raspa gave me that name.

Really?

Mhm.

Well, let's start with that.

Great. So, my first Burning Man was 1999. Um, I was dragged there by the Thunderdome founder, David King. And, uh, didn't know what I was doing. Camped partly with Thunderdome and partly with Pepe Ozon's opera camp.

Oh, yeah.

Because I thought it was going to be real opera. And so, I ended up spending all of my nights at Thunderdome. And, um, The second year I went out in 2000, I debuted Singing in the Thunderdome and I did the piece from The Fifth Element, which is now my signature piece.

Uh Steven Raspa heard me in 2001 and then started inviting me to sing for Decompressions. I'm going to I'm going to make a noise that says, "Please edit that out or something because that's actually inaccurate." Or maybe you're not going to edit it and it's just going to be lazy.

No, just correct it. Yeah,

just correct it. Perfect. Uh in 200 two, I got invited to sing at my first decompression

and um right before I went on stage, Raspa was getting ready to introduce me and he says, "What's your stage name?" And I said, "Marissa Lenhardt." And he says, "That's a terrible stage name. You can't have a complicated first name and a complicated last name." And he walks out

and he goes, "Diva Marica." I'm like, "Oh god, this is the worst name ever. It's so pretentious. And no opera singer, no full-time working opera singer would ever. And it's obnoxious, but it sounds it's it sounds good and it's stuck. And so I'm I'm I don't know. I'm trying to reclaim. It's terrible. I love you, Stephen. Sorry.

Wow. So 1999, your first Burning Man. So what uh what got you to go to Burning Man? What was your uh got you there?

I had known I'm a Bay Area kid born and raised in Alama

and had been reading about the Cacophony Society since I was a kid. So reading in the 80s about people uh finessing their way onto the Golden Gate Bridge and hosting cocktail parties. I was 12 and I was obsessed and you know can grow and singing with San Francisco Girls Chorus. We sang with the gay men's chorus. My exposure to art and queer spaces as a pre-teen was significant. Running around San Francisco, taking public transportation in San Francisco. I had um my first colleagues and friends died of AIDS before I was ever even sexually active.

Oh, wow.

Uh-huh. I sang at Club Deviate with the girls chorus um before I turned 13 years old.

Really?

Yeah. So, you know, I'm running around and I'm I'm This is my history and my exposure. And I went to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and then immediately went to New York because that's what you do. And in In April of 98, my mother's cancer came out of remission and she died on August 13th. And David King, with whom I was good friends, his mother had died uh April 17th of the same year, um was said to me, "You have to come to Burning Man." And I said, "I I can't. I have to go back to New York and try to keep my life going." And I didn't go in '98. And then 99, uh my life in New York collapsed. I moved back home. Uh I moved uh not back to my family's place. I moved to San Francisco and uh had driven across the country with two friends and um Oakland is you have to pass through Oakland to get to San Francisco and David lived in a warehouse in West Oakland at the time. And so we just stopped by and they happened to be in the middle of a Thunderdome meeting. all of my friends because Death Guild Thunderdome started out of of a nightclub and a bunch of you know people who went to Death Guild and worked at worked security at nightclubs and rode motorcycles and I stopped and so all my friends are at this warehouse having a meeting and they're like you have to come. I'm like okay okay but you know I'm going to search a bunch of Yahoo groups because obviously I need to find other singers and that was that brings us back to the earlier part of the story where uh I was wrong about that and ended up uh

so coming to Thunderdome just to like to to explain um what exactly was is Death Guild like is is was Death Guild like that's what predates Burning Man, predates Thunderdome.

Does not predate Burning Man, but certainly does predate Thunderdome. So Death Guild is a nightclub that started in March of of 1993 and it's still running. It's the longest running goth club in the United States, maybe the world. And right now it's at the DNA lounge still every Monday. And uh so Death Guild Thunder dome is is born out of that. So the first year that I believe folks went in a cohesive group from Death Guild was 97. 98 they brought a sound system because all they were getting was techno and 99 the idea was born to bring the dome.

Oh, so the dome only came in 99.

Yeah.

So when they went in 9798 like was it just like a theme camp with just like So, I wasn't there. Um,

well, yeah.

But but uh but it was I believe there there was, you know, the death guild sign from the nightclub.

Yeah. And and you know, everybody's riding motorcycles. Everybody's already got rat bikes. Um there's the modified vehicle uh that David King got from Kurt Harlon Larson of information society. So, if you're an old school nerd, Kurt was part of Thunderdome. Mhm.

And he's the lead singer for the band Information Society. And on the cover of this album, Hack is this satellite. I I He's going to kill me. I can't remember what year, but it was a modified satellite. And so that was given to David or David bought it. And so that was the first uh mutant vehicle in Thunderdome.

Oh.

And so there were vehicles, mostly motorcycles. One mutant vehicle. Um I think I brought the second one. which is Thor, my fire shooting rocket launching Cadillac that I had brought out for 17 years before I finally had to retire him. It broke my heart.

Um, yeah. So, it was bringing out the nightclub and then and then the activity wanted to be something a little bit more chaotic.

Okay. Yeah. Cuz also I mean DPW is also pretty famous for like their mutant vehicles, right? And so, and there's there's definitely kind of a wasteland warrior like Mad M kind of like theme to that. I mean, it kind of always has been, right? I mean, is that just kind of co-evolving sort of thing or

I can't speak I haven't worked DPW since 2004.

So, I can't really speak to how it's evolved, but we did come early. A bunch of us after 99 decided that we wanted to come early because Thunder's too much work to do both. Uh, so the 2000 I went out A five of us went out for four weeks to go work. And at that time, you just showed up at the 80.

And said, "I'm I'm here for morning meeting." And they assigned you to something. And so, a bunch of us worked fence and got to know Cowboy Carl pretty well.

Yeah. Yeah. So 99 was the first Oh, no. said 99 was the first year of the Thunderdome.

Mhm.

So,

that's right.

Is it always been the same dome the whole time or

No. Um,

it kind of looks similar, right?

It's Well, it is the same 44T wide 22t high dome size from pack domes. The first year it was uh 3/4 in conduit and we brought it out the second year and it just it can withstand people standing on it but the everything bent. Um and so we actually sold it to somebody. We brought it out in in 2001 and sold it to somebody and then they paid us to set set it up for them on ply

complicated.

It is I mean a bunch of us know how to do it now um and can lead a dome build. Uh but

I remember like one year at our camp um me and my brother had a camp for many years called the cult of distraction. And so we had uh someone like let us borrow it was just like a tiny little dome maybe at its height was maybe like 8 ft or something. I think it took us like two days.

I mean

cuz we're like it's like there's there's six and then there's there's five and then we put it up and take it down and put it up and take it down and put it up and take it down.

Um

it's just the whole geometry of it. We're like how does this work?

Once you get really familiar with reading the map, it becomes very

map. That was the important thing.

Oh, you didn't have a map. That's a problem. We Our we have nine lengths. The struts are nine different lengths. So anyway, so in 2001 we ordered a 1.16 in. And then a couple years later that held up beautifully. And then a couple years later they accidentally sent us a whole replacement batch of 1.66. And those are super robust. And now we've just slowly like now everything but a couple of points that have things attached to them uh are 1.66. And that dome is so freaking robust. It's

Well, I mean, how many people are like like climbing on it and hanging off it like at

a couple hundred?

That's a lot of weight.

But it's it's a Buckminister Fuller was a genius. You can't don't argue with genius. He he built something that can we cannot put enough people will not fit on the dome to cause it any damage. You cannot physically put enough people on the dome. We don't allow people up at the top because the sign is up there and it's heavy. And then we have everything. We have our rigging bar and our lights.

Mhm.

Um and everything uh from the top of the dome. So we don't let people up there because it's it's you know fragile up there and

um and the sign is not the dome was not designed to hold a sign

with that either. Right. Yeah.

It's very easy to Uh the sign rotates, but if it's windy, we turn off the motor so the sign can just spin freely.

Yeah.

And so it's it's if you remember the coyote head, were you there for that? It was the the mo the most injuries on Playa that year, we were usurped.

What year is that?

Oh je everything blurs together. But the top head, this metal art metal, massive metal, I think it was a coyote.

Maybe it was a Wolverine, you know. I don't know. The head spun and so people would get up to the top and then be knocked off by the head turning and there were a bunch of broken backs.

Oh wow.

This is ply a legend. I This is absolutely secondhand. This is not my art. So somebody can yell at me.

Well, speaking of the Thunderdome sign, I was just reading about like uh one of the more famous pranks of somebody climbing up there and putting a Hot Topic

2009

2009.

And then the org coming up was like, you know, that's just advertisement. You can't with their

Oh, no they didn't. No,

that's that part is urban legend.

Oh, really?

Yeah. We never The or knew what was going on from the beginning. I mean, it was it was a bunch of DPW folks who did it.

So, no, we like to play with I mean, we still tell people we're sponsored by Hot Topic.

Like, and the people that believe it. Oh, it's good.

Yeah. If only they would give you some money.

I mean, No, no, thank you.

There's no money at all. Like, yeah. Wow. Uh, and then another thing because I remember um well, listening to your interview with Stuart Mangra, it does a lot of stuff I had never like known about, but uh I guess I kind of thought about like which is like the injuries that talking about climb up to the top, but I was like I never even thought about people falling through

all the time. That's why we're so that is most Most of our security work is people. Okay.

And you have

y'all when you climb the dome, when you climb the dome with an open container and crap all over your f****** feet and then you're hailing your gross, dirty foot mess onto our heads and then spilling your drinks.

Yeah. No. If you drop a flashlight, it's ours. No, that's not true. But but it's disgusting. It is dis disgusting and we have to be people are not aware. We had a guy who had cut himself on one of the one of the um uh the the bolts.

So the bolts go in

and so you have to like reach around to some reach out.

Sorry. You have to you have to get to the inside of the dome to cut yourself on one of the bolts, but it's possible. And he was bleeding on us. Just bleeding bleeding. And we're like, "Please come down. You're you're bleeding on us." He didn't even know. He wasn't even aware he was bleeding. He had cut his shin open. Um

shin like how do you get shin on the inside of a

I you know

like

people going to hide? I don't I

I don't know. Um

I mean is there a certain level that they're like allowed to go? Do you guys have like a line or

Yeah, there's a line. There's caution tape.

Oh, okay.

And that's where we have the rigging bar attaches to several points. So we have a rigging bar from which our fighters are suspended and that is attached to to a bunch of points along the dome and there are plates with these blocks that hold it to the dome to it's to to dynamic load is sketchy. So static load is no problem. Everybody there's a lot less physics involved in determining what weight can be supported with static load. Dynamic load very different situation. So we Our engineering says we want to accommodate 2500 lb of dynamic load per fighter. So, uh it is that and and um and polar fatigue are why we don't allow fighters typically don't allow fighters over 250 pounds. Um so, so yeah, the we don't want anybody messing with the where the rigging is attached. We And that is also where the lighting goes. We have um in front of the DJ booth all our electricity that goes up to the sign. Um yeah, it's we don't Yes, there's a there's a line. The caution tape is there for a reason, but we also don't want you falling in the dome. We don't want you injuring our people.

And aesthetically wouldn't be very good if we had like netting like all in the inside.

We did our first year. really.

Yeah, we did. Um, it's doesn't create enough of visual interest. Um, it doesn't look enough to warrant the it being a pain in the ass. Somebody threw um flew a drone into the dome once and lost a very expensive drone.

Dip shirt.

I imagine the two fighters just stopped fighting each other like swinging around. Get it?

They didn't even notice.

Oh, really?

No, no, no. They didn't even notice cuz It was um

Oh,

yeah.

So, all of the engineering, was this like kind of like trial and error over the years or did you guys actually have like like engineers like sit down with like like pencil, paper, calculator? Like

we had a couple engineers uh and professional fabricators who did a lot of that. The work on the rigging bar, the work on the sign.

Oh, okay. I'm just imagining like, okay, when uh we we bought this land, we we built a house here in Hawaii and So there's these two trees and my son was like I don't know about 10 years old and I was like I'm going to put up a zipline you know and I didn't go much I mean I'm I'm a amateur engineer you know and uh looking at the instructions and they were like you know you want to have from one end to the other be like only a a slight you know like increase or decrease and I was like oh screw that you know like instead of like a couple inches I would have a couple feet you know and and So, like you know the first run. Okay, get on. Go down like smack into the

Which one of your kids slammed into the side of whatever was on the other end of it? Which one? Was it the one you didn't like as much? Was it the heavier one?

So, so we had a zipline for a couple years and I loved it.

It went from the scaffolding, which is higher than the dome, to the dome.

And we had we had to have catchers. But the biggest issue is the dome can totally handle it. The scaffolding can totally handle it. These are not the issues. The biggest issue is that people drive mutant vehicles on the esplanade all the f****** time.

Well, how high was the symbol?

Oh, uh, let's see. Dome is 22 and a half 22.

That's right. Pretty high.

Uh, so so 20 Well, it didn't come in at the top of the dome. It came in to at upper side.

But people are d*******. So you need security. And you're not supposed to drive on the f****** esplanade, but you need security on either side 24/7 or you're d-rigging and rigging the zipline every day because if a f****** unaware mutant vehicle driver, I know that never happens, drives down, it will tear down the scaffolding.

Uhoh. Yeah.

And this is a fight in camp, but because I'm the one um being interviewed right now. I'm going to say it is a f****** terrible idea. Unless you can have staffing 24/7 or and and that's even if you do it when dome is operational, who's using it? Who's using it when the dome is operational? The show is inside. So, it's really only for entrance purposes if you're going to make a show, which is 15 minutes. How much appetite do people have for a zipline? So, it's 15 minutes of entertainment. Oh, you got me. This is This is my tear. This is my special interest. Uh 15 minutes of entertain entertainment. Nobody can be working security can be doing anything else. Um we have to have staffing for that time. Um and then what are you going to do? You're going to take the time to take it down while fights are happening because you don't have the staffing. And besides who in camp, it's already hard enough to get people to work back of line security because you don't get to see the show. if you're working back of line, you're outside the dome. So, who's going to volunteer to be like, I'm going to stand on the esplanade for three hours while fights are happening and miss the fights. Um, maybe daytime entertainment. That would be that would be the only the only real use case I could see. And then it would have to have a quick release. I think I might be done with my rant now, but I I there may be more.

But I'm just imagining Yeah, like a zip line and if it's not like, you know, 20, 30, 40t up in the air Like it's it's like a you know especially at night would be just like an invisible kind of like

Did you know that? Did you know that that people have mutant vehicles that they turn into boats? You ever see that? No one's ever seen that, right? With masks. With f****** masts.

Well, now there's bikes that have like those big long, you know, like like 20 foot like, you know, things going off of them.

I mean, we all saw what happened in Brooklyn last month. I mean, I was three blocks away.

What was that? Brooklyn.

Oh my god. Um, Mexican Navy ship.

Oh, that

lost control and slammed into the and the slammed into the Brooklyn Bridge and a bunch of people died.

Several people died.

That's right. Forgot about that.

It was brutal.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Was having uh Mexican food three blocks away.

You were there.

I mean, I wasn't at I mean I was there. Yes.

In the city. Like

I was in Brooklyn, three blocks away from the base of the bridge and we were like, "What's that? That's a lot of sirens.

Weird.

Wow.

Yeah. I haven't been to New York in a long time. I actually grew up in New Jersey. Went to high school in New York like in the in the 80s.

I wor I lived in Jersey and worked in Manhattan.

Oh, really? Where in Jersey?

Cliffside Park.

Oh.

Went back and and emotionally cut myself at my old apartment. Uh when I was there in February, I was like, I got to go see this s*** hole of a place, you know, where

where my life fell apart.

Left New Jersey. It was like 89. and I graduated from high school and I was just like, "Yeah, I'm not coming back."

Yeah. Um

Yeah.

Yeah. It was a I think that apartment was two of us 600 square feet.

Wow.

Uhhuh.

So

anyway, can edit all that out, too.

Well, back to Burning Man.

Anyway,

so 99.

This is my villain origin story, by the way. This

It's like, why did you turn evil. Uh, so in 19 your your first year at Burning Man.

Uh, so you said you kind of went like you were thinking more of like the joining the like Pepe Jose

I did join

opera but uh but you so how did you get involved with Thunderdome or or I guess I had back then or was it Death Guild/ Thunderdome or Thunderdome was just part of Death Guild

or was that the

God these are so many questions. Okay so how did I get involved is that I have been going to Death Guild the nightclub since since 1993. And those are all my friends.

Okay.

I knew all of those people and had known them for years and years and years and years well before Death Guild went to Burning Man. So, those were my people. That was my community. Um cuz I'm a goth. Uh but I felt certain that the art I would want to commit at Burning Man would be opera. because that is my art. And it didn't occur to me that I that we were bu going to be building a stage. And in fact, we didn't think that strangers would want to fight. We just thought we were going to be building it for ourselves to fight. So, um, uh, I emailed folks and and you know, the 90s there weren't really great websites you could look at to to so I think I found some Burning Man list serve and it was recommended that I introduce myself to the folks at Pepe Ozon's Opera and I met those folks and so I would I went to rehearsals during the day and um but I spent every night I slept at Thunderdome so I did I was co- I was polyamperous

um and so I sang at the in the in the opera. I became a member of the gday. Uh it was that was the voodoo year. Um and got to know Pepe and in 2012 uh we were at meetings at his house. 2011 we're at meetings at his house because he was making a comeback. I miss him a lot.

Yeah.

But but you know Thunderdome since It became very clear that that was my I mean I got s*** from the opera people for spending too much time at at not at not there but also 99 was very cold year and they had told us bring a sleeping bag and a pillow and everybody's going to sleep in this big open space under a under the our parachute

which apparently prior to 99 is a thing that people did because it was warm at night. Warm enough at night.

Yeah.

And then 99 it dropped to freezing overnight and I you know

I think that was the year I remember like at 12:00 noon we're like huddling at our camp and freezing cuz it was like 40° or something.

Yeah.

So I found I found a boy or two to you know to shack up with and that was my 99.

So you went for the opera but then you found your love at the Thunderdome and so

I let me be clear I I car pulled up I left from David King's house. I carpulled up with Thunderdome. So to say that I was at the opera and then

joined Thunderdome is not accurate at all.

Yeah. Well, no.

Like I I came up with Thunderdome crew. Our vehicles broke down together. I didn't meet anyone from the opera until I physic until I had been on Playa for 3 days.

Okay.

Because I went I stayed at Thunderdome, assembled the first dome and then went to um and then went to the first rehearsal. So, so, so from onsuing years, I I take it you went back like year after year, like

I've never missed one. Yeah.

Oh, really? Wow. Um,

did you split your time those first couple of years between the opera and Death Guilds?

No, I was at the opera for maybe 25% of the time my first year and then I never looked back.

Awesome.

No, I mean, no, no, no, no. I love them. They're great.

Yeah. Well, it's party. your time there. Yeah.

But also I I did DPW. I got super involved. Uh I built my first mutant vehicle. It was a Thunderdome vehicle, you know, that was 2000. So no, I was not I was barely polyamperous the first year and I got a ton of s*** for it from the opera people because I assumed that the minute rehearsal started, I would be spending all my time at opera camp. And I spent less than the minimum amount necessary. So, uh, going back in 2000, did you like get involved with like leadership or were you just kind of like, uh, I'm one of the volunteers hanging out?

Thunderdome leadership.

Thunderdome. Yeah,

volunteers. I didn't start leading until 2004.

Oh.

Um, yeah. 2003 was my last relaxed year.

And like the DPW and stuff, was that kind of like in that interregnum kind of period like between like 94 or 99?

Yeah. 200 2001, 2002, 2003. I did a little bit of DPW in 2004 and then realized I could not do DPW and manage Thunderdome. There's absolutely not.

Well, you got to learn your limits, right?

Yeah. I was I was a puppy.

I was very young.

Aren't we all?

It's funny because I think that I don't know. I was remember doing kind of like a going down a rabbit hole, doing a deep dive and like looking at like the Birdie Man census and like statistics. I mean there like over like many years and just seeing like the age distribution and stuff and it

is an old Gen X now.

Well, I don't know maybe but um just one of the things that kind of stuck with me was just that like over like many many years it seems like the largest contingent of people are is pretty much between like 20 and 35 or so. It it almost seems like a rotating cast of characters of like like younger people. I mean there's always like there's many people of of of every age, you know, but uh it always it just seems like like the the majority of the people are are younger.

Fascinating. I think of us as an aging population, but I guess that's inaccurate.

Well, I mean, it's always people kind of like cycle in and cycle out, too. And also, I don't know if you see my t-shirt. Oh,

a cute.

Well, last year when I went back, um Oh. Oh, for the listeners that can't see.

Oh,

Andy's wearing a shirt that is the classic Burning Man logo with a little graduation cap on it holding a diploma in its uh outstretched right hand and the text on the side reads graduated.

Yeah.

Gold on black.

Last year was the the first uh regional contact alumni reunion I did because I I mean I was like I'm an alumni and it's like I know that a number of people who are alumni and I was just like oh there's a lot of people who like you know who who who've been regional contacts or or I mean now you think about this people who've been DPW people been like all sorts of things and it's like oh I've moved on you know but then you kind of come back after many years and it's like well well what do you do when you're an alumni and you come back you have an alumni reunion it's like no one

was it weird

no one ever done this before but I don't know there was like two people showed up last year and we're going to do it again this year it's at it's center camp I think that's be like Wednesday Actually, by the time this comes out, the little happen, but uh it's gonna be like Wednesday on the play at like 4 to 6

during the cacophony. Um so, uh cocktail hour.

Well, that's like that's 6 to 8 or something. So, we're like right before that. We like lead into it.

Not that there's a cacophony cocktail hour. Don't go.

Yeah. Yeah. Don't go.

You may already be a member.

I'm just amazed that at 12 years old, you were reading about cacophony. Like, how did you read about

the newspaper chronicle? like just like the bookstores or

my parents' front porch like they made the news. I read the paper. That was that was it was um and I already you know I was already wearing all black. I was already listening to Depes Mode. I already knew I was a weirdo. I already was singing opera. You know I was already an artist. I already had all this exposure to to these communities.

Yeah. No, it sounds like you had cool parents. Wow.

Kind of like the the opposite.

Oh gosh. Um, no. My dad,

what's that?

Time to go to church. Marissa, put on your Sunday best.

Well, funny you should mention, my mother was a German immigrant who came here in the 60s.

Uh, she came from very small farm uh, Schwabbach Zaland for our German listeners in the Zar, which if you know, you know, is a former coal mining region uh on the west southwest of Germany and she met my dad. She was working as an Opair in Alama. My dad was a San Francisco city kid, five sets of foster parents growing up, was not adopted by Mr. Lenhard until he was 24 years old.

His um his mother, his biological mother and um his adopted dad hooked up in when he was eight and he moved in with them. and uh she never admitted that she was his mother. Um and Mr. Linhardt was gay. So it was a beautiful cover story. And um I never knew my biological grandfather who was Colombian um from from Bogotaa, architect in Bogota.

Avar Guzman, if anybody wants to sleuth him, he was an architect. He built a hippodrome. Um but yeah, I have no con cultural connection with my Colombian uh with my Colombian heritage. It's a mystizo. So I'm um part Chipcha native and part Colombian and I literally know nothing about I don't speak Spanish. Uh I speak German. I'm German citizen fluent in that because my my cultural connection is to my German family who are still in Germany. My mother passed as I mentioned in 98. My dad went to Burning Man.

Oh really?

Six times before the pandemic. Wow.

Yeah.

Camp with you guys.

Oh, yeah. He worked security.

Oh, really?

Yep. He was amazing. He So, he So, we have the security front and back of security for our fighters. And then we have the uh I'm making a I'm making a

T

a a perpendicular sign with my with my hands right now. It's just not helpful. So, if your fighters are off to the left, then dead ahead of you is the dome. And there's somebody who works security just so that our staff can quickly get in and out. out of the dome without having to navigate through a line of people and that was my dad's job and he was amazing at it. Uh and he has not been back since the pandemic and we miss him. So my dad super liberal, very cool. My mom German conservative which means that um you know she believes in health care, she believed in health care for everybody. She believed in housing for everybody.

Um she was an interior designer so gay people were fine and straight people were fine but those bisexuals they just liked sex. Um, but I did I did grow up Catholic because uh my dad found a lot of strong community in the Catholic church and uh I spend a lot of time at church. In fact, I get paid to sing at church.

Oh wow.

So yeah, I sang um and I trained up with the Catholics to in 2000 I moved I so I moved back to San Francisco in 99 and I needed more money than I was making. So I got out the phone book and I said sent a cover letter on my resume to all 88 churches in San Francisco.

Oh.

And three of them got I sent one to the Temple of Set. Uh I sent it I was

I mean who knows who knows what what they want. And three got back to me. One said we are a congregation of 20. We don't need a singer.

One said uh we're putting you on our list to do weddings. And one um from St. Ans of the Sunset, a huge parish on Funston and Kirkham, I think. Uh, the guy got back to me. He said, "Our caner is always late. She's not interested in this job anymore. I'm going to train you up if you're the real deal." So, I started going to him uh once a uh once or twice a week for a month while he trained me how to be a caner. If you don't know about canering, um

no, explain it.

It's it's uh Yeah. So, it's not obviously because it's a Catholic church A Jewish canering is very different. Um it is it is an actual uh religious position within the within the Jewish faith.

A caner for Catholic service leads the mass. So um just as an example, if I sing then the whole congregation goes on. So it's it's leading that it's leading the service. You you know sing all the hymns. You do the whole thing. Um yeah, opening opening hymn, curier, gloria, uh offeratory, communion, responsorials, closing hymn, whatever else you got. And so he trained me up and I swapped in did three services a week, one on Saturday, two Sunday morning for years. Moved to s moved to Alamita, switched churches, they lost St. Barnabas and Alama lost their funding and And I got hired by St. Margaret Mary which did beautiful music and then the their pastor or their priest fired me

when he found out Yeah. when he found out that I got married not in a church. So legally in Cal in the state of California you can be replaced by a you can be replaced in your job if you work for a religious institution you can be replaced in your job by a member of that religion. Um and so he he been hoping he and he knew I didn't he knew I lived in sin with my boyfriend but he was hoping for that kind of last ditch thing and and I took a couple weeks off and I said oh he said where where have you been and I said I got married and he said I think you can't work here anymore if you if you don't let me marry you in the church he said where did you get married and I said in Berkeley and he said no which parish and I said outdoors and he um he said I think that's evil I don't think you can sing here anymore And I immediately on my drive home, I called the music director with whom I had a great relationship and I said, "He's going to make you fire me." He said, "What are you talking about?" I said, "He's going to make you fire me. I promise." And the next day, the guy didn't The freaking father Zach did not even have the testicular fortitude to fire me himself. He made my friend do it.

Wow.

And the par the par the members of that parish were so kind to me after that. Um because I'm not I'm not spiritual. I'm not religious. Um

be another question I had. Yeah. Yeah.

But but then know so I post on Facebook. I'm in hysterical tears. I've got a bunch of priests on my Facebook list because I I've been subbing. Not that kind of subbing. Um for churches all over the Bay Area for years. And so I post on Facebook and Father Jeff Keys who was at St. Edwards in Fremont wrote on my Facebook profile. He said, "You will always have a job at St. Edward. Contact Sam Dorock, the music director, immediately." Because I have a good reputation. I can site readad Latin. I can site readad anything you th in front of me. I'm on time. I I'm a really good musician.

I um not to oversp speak, but I have a reputation. I have excellent training. I have a degree. Uh and I'm I don't I don't f*** around. So, uh so then he privately messages me because he knows my politics and writes, "You always have a job at St. Edward. Just don't scandalize the choir."

I'm like, "Oh, you know me." So, I went and then they two years later they lost their funding and by that point I was making enough money at my day job that I just didn't replace it. And now I sub for an amazing place at um St. John's Presbyterian where they don't care about my hair color. Uh cuz it was it was blue. It was brown until after after St. Edwards. Um you know, I because you can't go to a you can't go to a traditional Catholic church looking the way I look now.

Um and for the for for listeners, I have a blue mohawk now. But um

blue mohawk or you know that not living in sin doesn't matter, but getting married outside in Berkeley, outside of a church. I mean, did they ever like anyone ever like be like, you know, what about this this picture we have from this this devil festival in the desert? Did that never

No. And what's funny is that I they knew I was they knew I went to Burning Man. They knew all of this. I rode my motorcycle to services. I never went to take communion. Um, and I received my first communion. I was never confirmed into the Catholic Church. Um, it is my understanding that the belief is there there are these points in in the Catholic faith um and I again I am not I was raised Catholic I'm not a practicing Catholic but there are these points at which that are conversion points a lot of people uh want to get married in a church so they will go back to the faith so that they have use of that facility and they will say they are of the faith and they probably donate some amount um and and my husband was um we're no longer together uh but um he's Jewish. I said, "Oh, my husband's Jewish. I can't get married in a church." And he goes, "No, we can get a special dispensation. They will Catholics will go through all the hoops to convert you or to get to to get you in."

Yeah.

And there are marriage is the last point before a deathbed confessional that is considered one of these pinnacle points. So, I was a lost cause. I didn't want to get married. I didn't want to I didn't want a white dress or, you know, fancy church service and so was it like oh well

yeah

holding that for the next confessional I was so hurt I was so incredibly I' had been in that community for eight years the congregation are were and are probably still lovely and they were so supportive and they made sure that I knew that they didn't support his decision and they appealed and everything too

yeah

and by that point I just said I'm not interested in no thanks I know how to not be where I'm not wanted

but I mean I don't know I mean well kind of getting some Sorry, weeds. This is not about Burning Man.

Well, no. I mean, it kind of

I drove I drove Thor I drove my mutant vehicle to that church

repeatedly. It was my only car for more than 10 years. I didn't have another car.

People like like the the congregants like looking at you where like half of them like clutching their pearls, another half just like, "Yeah, that's awesome."

I have to say this about the congregations at which I've been fortunate to sing. Um Catholics tend to highly value education. They highly value um kindness. Uh most of them are not super evangelical. Um nobody in this parish with whom I'm my Facebook friends obviously supports our current administration

because they consider it evil. They consider it anti-immigrant, which it is.

Oh yeah.

Um It was so weird. Uh and so um people accepted me as being there to do something for which they were thankful. I met some of the kindest people in this congregation. And I don't um and nobody said anything s***** to me even though they knew I wasn't Catholic. They were very kind. The congregants are incredibly kind.

Um and my dad uh doesn't doesn't go to church anymore because he's, you know, very pro- LGBTQIA and I'm I'm I'm queer. So, he, you know, he's supportive of me and um, you know, some some of some of the people I like best are Catholic. No, I can't. Um, but but any any evangelical is is gives me the heebie-jebies. If it's somebody who is, you know, insisting that that astrology is the way way or insisting that, you know, sky Jesus is the way. I I

I question anything that's not strictly scientific. So, so it all kind of sound it all runs together for me. People seem to need a belief system

and it it helps create sense out of chaos.

Uh and this resonates with me because like yeah, I grew up Catholic. I mean, I remember like as a kid like we actually would go to church, but then like as years went by it was just kind of like Christmas and Easter, you know, and then I went to actually went to like a Jesuit high school, you know, and then

yeah, I mean like definitely value education, but then you know, of course after that in college and then after college moved to San Francisco, you know, and you know, and then uh after being in San Francisco for two years like I went out to this devil festival out in the desert, you know,

Spike TV came to film us. We got permission from Burning Man. Spike TV came and did a documentary, five-part series on us in 2006.

They came to church and filmed me.

Really?

Yes. Yes. And I could have to dig it up somewhere, but there's footage of me singing on a Spike TV documentary with my And I had ridden my motorcycle there.

So singing in the the church is was this kind of just like was this like a job for you or is this just like your passion? I mean, do you have like a

No, no, no, they pay me. Oh my god. No, they pay me. Sorry. No, I'm not going to go to church.

Well,

no. They That's a paid gig.

Go to church. I'm not believe in it.

You go, it's a paid gig.

Absolutely. It's one of the best ways for singers to make money. It's one of the only ways out of school that a singer can make money. Yes. There's cancer. You go to um Oh, what's the really good one? The uh St. No, St. Dominic's the beautiful one in San Francisco. Twothirds of those twothirds of those singers, a third of them are Jewish and they're Oh my god. No. Musicians are we're scrappy as s***, man. I will take I will take a paycheck anywhere. to go sing. Yes. It was a job. It was it was a for for the first

six years I did it, it was 30% of my income, just the church.

Yes.

And so you still singing in the churches now or

St. St. John's Presbyterian on college. I sub there. I can't uh I work I travel way way way too much to uh to have a regular church job. Um but I sub regularly

and they're great.

Yeah.

And what about um do you said you're a trained classic like opera singer. Do you ever sing any like any like any operas or anything or

I haven't done a full opera since before the pandemic and it's been very hard to break back in.

Oh yeah.

Uh but I've done a ton of really fun circus stuff. So I'm doing a lot of opera on trapeze now.

Oh wow.

Yeah. I've been doing that in the dome since uh the last

How did that come about? I mean with the singing I mean in in the

funny you should mention. So, we're going to reel it back.

Yeah,

we're going to bring it back in

back and forth, but whatever.

Raspa brought to that decompression in 2002. Uh, brought Greg Angelo of Velocity Circus to come and hear me sing because he knew I was going to do The Fifth Element. Greg had never been to Burning Man. 20 2003 early, I get a call from Greg and saying you do that piece from the fifth element. We have a request for the piece from the fifth element. So I joined a circus in 2003 and I have never looked back. It has it has it makes my life make sense. So my degree is from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Bachelor's accredited music school yada yada yada. But that like that chaos I've traveled with the circus. I've I we've gone to festivals. We everything everything that you associate with traveling with a with a it uh with a full circus. It's a blast, you know, and and um and then and then we were at this just hotel that we're sharing like four people to a room adjoining doors just a cheap we're in Ohio and Greg comes barging through an adjoining door and it's like Marissa we're getting you to do oporadic fortuneelling because because our our fortune teller backed out. So, I have this shtick where I I ask somebody their favorite color and then I relate it to an opera and then I sing a section and I figure out like, you know, every opera has love and death, right? So, I just I'm like, "Oh, have you ever experienced a great love or have you ever experienced death?" You know, and then get into it and then sing something and, you know, it's like anything. And um in 200 uh 2008 or nine, I was like, you know, I don't like the gym, but But I do want to work out more. And Greg said, "Let's get you on the trapeze. Let's get you singing on it." So he trained me up. So since 2008 and 8ish nine was my first uh opera and trapeze performance in uh in the Bottoms in Oakland, downtown Oakland.

So what circus was this again?

Velocity. Greg Angelo's Velocity Circus. They have an amazing museum home in uh in San Francisco in St. Francis Wood. You can go and visit. You can do walkthroughs. It's an incredible immersive experience.

Oh,

I go have I um I get cuz artists are we're scrappers. Uh so every Thursday um there's a behind thescenes tour of the house and the one:00 lunch is the meet the artist lunch. So I've been working with Greg for 22 years. And so any Thursday that I want to go and have lunch, I just go and talk to strangers about my involvement with Velocity and and get a delicious home-cooked meal. And then I leave with when the when the folks start walking through. Although the last time I went was a month or so ago and um he says get up. There's a trapeze in his house because of course there is. It's a static not it's not swinging. It's a static trapeze and aerialists will know what that means.

Um static single point which means you climb up to it. You don't fly on it. And I don't fly on the trapeze and I do I do static double point. Again aerialists will know what this means. Um and so he has a static single point hanging from one of his rooms and he said go into the trapeze room and surprise the tour that's coming through. So, I like sneak in through the back door and I climb up on the trap. He's in my street clothes and it was a blast. So, I do do stuff like that. And so, he he has brought me into the kind of chaotic world of and I love doing character work, walkound work. Now, I didn't have any of that skill set. Opera is very uh prescribed that you know exactly where you're going to go stand. You know exactly what you're going to say and when. And Greg really brought me into an improvisational environment to where I now love character work. I love of interactive immersive walkound work. So, um I'm currently working on a secret project that's going to be um I'm not quite ready to talk about it yet, but it's

Well, this is going to come out in like middle of September. So,

okay. Deconstructed Magic Flute where uh

where um I'm going to have the It's immersive. It's going to be a walkound. It's going to, I believe, debut at Greg's Museum

and um have the audience divide into. If you know the story of flute, Zarastro and Queen of the Night are pitted against each other. Um there are two different love interest stories. I'm going to have the audience split to play one of them, one each of them. And there are these kind of inflection points um where people get to walk around. So that is what fascinates me. I love immersive theater. I um

So where's that? Like on the on the plane you're talking about?

No, it's going to be at Greg's Greg's house. It's going to be at this museum. Um, but no, I mean, Thunderdome is like to get back to the thing we're actually supposed to be talking about apparently, which is

Well, it's all about you actually. You know,

I don't know. I mean, um, we haven't talked about how I got into tech, which pays for all of, you know, my my day job, which pays for all of, you know, my my fun hobbies. But Thunderdome is immersive theater, right? And people go and they like go and participate

involved cuz like 99, they bring the first dome and they have the sign and Sure. It's like ah

we were Death Gild Barter Town the first year.

Barter Town. That's right.

We were Death Barter Town and people so many people tried to barter with us and we were not prepared.

It has it right there in the name. What the hell?

I know. Haven't you seen the movie? No. No.

Well, because I imagine it's it's like an evolution as time goes by, right? You know, and so then it's like I mean because like what you're talking about like having the guard at the front of the line, have the guards at the back of the line, have the people at the top. I mean like you don't just start off with that like

No. nine, right? Also, the technology of like the the rigging and everything.

Yeah, that's evolved a lot

year after year we're like, oh yeah, after that guy fell. Yeah, let's do this.

Yeah, it that has changed quite a bit. Uh we used to have um

rules, right? Like,

pardon?

Even like rules that would have like people come in or people watching or

Well, we didn't used to need a line, so we just and and um we didn't used to have pullers. The first evolution ution of it is we stood on milk crates and then had them removed and we were we were rigged. We're suspended from a series of chains that came off the side of the were attached from three different points to again address the dynamic load. Chains would come to a single point from which a fighter was suspended. Um and now we have the rigging bar. And then we had um we didn't used to have the cranks, right? So we'd have to you just had to hope that you could get up high enough Um again with the milk crates.

So it's not like elastic like in the movie like you're not like shooting at each other.

Yeah, we are. Um but so the part that holds the fighter the rigging in the air that's that's a cable that's attached um cable from the side of the dome where we have um somebody running a winch which is a a hand crank

uh to raise and lower the fighter that That cable goes up to the rigging point and then there is um static contraption

that goes down to the bungee ropes and the bungee ropes snap into your climbing harness with with carabiners.

Okay.

So, the only part that's bungee is the part from which the the very last part from which the fighter is suspended.

Oh, okay. So, there's not a lot of play. Like, you're not like bouncing from one side to the other.

Not to that degree.

We wish, but it's very hard to It's almost impossible to fabricate that and not have um active

It's not aerial rigging where you have somebody who can just yank and it goes up and down really quickly.

I imagine that would be a lot more dangerous to people.

It's And it And circus rigging is is to have some you need a professional rigger if you're gonna um do fly rigging like that. People that's that's a great way to to get killed and and if you if you've done a circus show and you look at that kind of rigging it's um that is a highly technical skill.

Yeah. So how do the matches work and like how often I mean are you guys running like I mean it's not 247, right? I mean

about three hours a night from 9 to midnight. Oh, okay. That's

takes about 25 people over the course of an evening to run a dome, which is why we don't do it more. Our crew is 50 to 75 people on any given year. 80 with 80 with guests or 55 core people and about 80 85 with our guests. So, no, we don't have enough. We're not that big a crew. We're very tight-knit. Um, so, uh, we run from 9:00 to midnight. night. We run about god 50 fights a night maybe.

50. How long do they last? I mean

between, you know, three and five minutes is a long fight.

Oh, really?

Um 7 to 8 minutes is an insanely long fight with with people who are who are getting their cardio regularly. Like a a really seasoned rock climber or an aerialist will be able to do a longer fight.

How does it how does that It's safe to ask, but how does it end like each match? I mean,

oh, well, people people usually you're so you have an officient who um if you get a significant enough injury, we will remove you. Um but the officient will check if you look at a fight closely, um the officient is constantly checking in with the fighters and they're saying, "Do you want to go again? Are you ready to go again?" And if they sense that somebody's looking exhausted, they will say, you know, "Do you what do you want to do? And the answer can be, and they'll say something like, do you want to go one more time and call it immediately? Do you want to look like you didn't give up? Because we want to, we're there for the show. We're there to help them make a show, right? We're not like, oh, this person crapped out. It's like, why don't you do one more pullback and then get a hit in and we'll call it immediately or well, any any number of things. So, it it's you. It's almost always fighter fatigue.

And what do they fight with? Uh we um have uh PVC tubing onto which we slide pool noodles um

okay

which are held together with glue and tape and then we put a sock over them and then the end of the pool noodle also so the the buffer itself is is pool noodle skinny handle and then that what you're gripping onto is another smaller section of pool noodle um Yeah,

they're not like spragging up to the side and grabbing chainsaws off or

only a little

very large hammers.

No, we don't let people fight with We don't even let people bare knuckle and we don't let people fight with their own weapons just cuz um we'll get injured.

Yeah. Well, what if I because that was one thing I remember like when I was in college and we made very similar things is like electrical conduit and like uh like pipe insulation and like and duct tape and so we would make all sorts of things like like Warhammers and axes and katanas like

we have a couple of professional co like semi-professional cosplayers prop people

uh and um reenactors

and they've been experimenting with some new prototypes. So that's been interesting.

Wait, do you have the selection like where when the fighters come up it's like choose your weapon or

No, our our uh our we have weapons people and um that's kind of a dancing entertainment act role where they the weapons people will hand the weapons. They pick for you.

Oh. Oh, you don't get to choose your own weapon.

You do not.

Oh. Huh. And like you said, like no one over 250 pounds. Is there like a lower limit or like age limits like lower and higher?

Um people who are under 100 pounds, it can be hard to um it can be very dangerous. They can fall out. It depends on how that 100 pounds is distributed.

Age wise, you got to have a parent approving if you're you know, younger than if you're a minor,

like if you're just too young like for you.

Well, we got Man,

is it your carding?

No, I mean, typically if somebody's at in line at Thunderdome at night, they are over 18, right? Like um we used to do Kidsville every year. We used to go to Kidsville and we hosted little tiny fights in little tiny jungle gym dome.

Oh my god, that's funny.

And it was so adorable. Kids are so brutal. So brutal. Oh my god. And then we had um and then we there would be kids who would be too big to fight in the little tiny dome. And we there's not there weren't bungee harnesses or anything. We just let them go beat each other with our small we take our smallest weapons

and we do the speech and we'd have our our smallest officients. We go in and it was so cute. And then a lot of the teenagers who were camped in Kidsville uh were too big. for that. And so we would say it's teen night in the dome. And then I had an uncomfortable conversation with Charlie Dolman who said the sheriff wants to talk to you.

Oh. Uhoh.

Wo. Sheriff wants to talk to you because he thinks you're encouraging child violence. And I said, "Well, that was our last teen night." And then we hosted Kids Fights in the Dome on Thursday and had this absolutely awful woman come up to me, ask me if I ran Thunderdome. She said, "Are you encouraging this?" And I said, "No, the parents are encouraging this." Because we used to have once once Kidville stopped bringing their tiny dome, we let the kids come and duke it out in ours, but Kidsville is highly protected with walls

and Thunderdome is totally out there. So, this just evil woman um said, "If I can I go hit a kid. And I said,

"Got a monster on."

I said, "What the f*** is wrong with you? You're disgusting. Get the f*** away from me." And she said, "What's your name?" And I said, "I don't think so." Um, she was trying to start a fight. And instead of starting it with the parents who were encouraging their children to do this, she started with me because that that made sense. So, I later received a message from an attorney.

Wow.

Who said, "I need to talk to you about this. I saw some things that upset me. and I ignored it and it was it was I don't know two years ago and it was via Facebook and I was like you know what this is not

I'm not this is my volunteer activity. I am not f****** having a conversation with a sheriff or a lawyer about something. I'm like I'm like we're just not doing it anymore. So Kidsville folks we are very sorry but if you ever decide to build a jungle gym in your camp again we will be back in a second but we're never we're not having kids out again. That's just amazing to me that someone would contact their lawyer about something they saw at Burning Man and just like I was highly disturbed.

Karen's gonna Karen

like where do you think like

that almost sounds like apply a theme camp?

Well, it's also so typical that instead of approaching a parent, you would go to this perceived authority.

Yeah.

Like you know, you know what I did during the rain? I was like, you know what? We should have a f****** slip and slide. Oh. because you can hurt yourself on that. Like don't I'm not I'm not here for good ideas. You want to injure yourself. You you have fun.

All right. I think it's about time we get to the last question.

The impact of Burning Man on your life. The the theme of the show, the whole shadow of the man over all these years. So 99 you've been going every single year.

Why? What keeps you coming back?

My community 100%. um working DPW um my community's expanded out right so you you go and there are 10,000 people there 15,000 people there and you work in these communities and you become friends with you know people who are now managing bigger things um everybody kind of grows up and evolves if Dome didn't go. Would I go? Probably not. It's for me, it's about my family reunion and my vacation. It's not really a vacation because we're all working, but

reunion.

Um, but we we are the kind of people who need to be working and building something together in order to spend time together. And you find enough people like that, you get the right people. We don't have a kitchen. We don't provide power. We don't we don't have any amenities. So, the people that we attract are a certain type of person. Um, and And it's shaped so much of my life, the realm of of possibility. And also managing has enabled and empowered my entire day job career. Uh I managed Thunderdome before I had a management position, you know, at a Fortune 500 company. So um people are are sensitive and kind and thoughtful and want to be seen for their contributions and that is consistent across

across everything

and uh honoring that

means the world to me. Uh and and empowering empowering people is very much uh a motivator for me. People who don't have the opportunity to do these kinds of things in their real life, in their other life. Um, it watching the next generations take on things in the dome has been wildly inspiring to me. And people coming with their own ideas and their own motivations and creating their own communities. It's gorgeous.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I was always stuck with stuck with me like one of Larry's quotes, you know, it's like Bernie man is like a it's like a religion without the the spiritual like without the supernatural, you know, but like I mean but honestly going back to like what you're talking about like like singing in the churches and and just the parishioners and like you know sticking with you even though you know like a priest might fire you or whatever like it it's for me I find it's all kind of comes back like you're saying it's like the community like it it a fellowship you know it's I mean, I don't know. I mean,

I mean, it's a cult. No, I But but here's the thing. Is it No, no, no. I

defined as I got in trouble for saying this to a a an evangelical friend who was she is now fully recovered. But I said um I said, you know, religion's you know, Christianity is a cult. And she and and uh actually her it was her husband at the time who who took offense at this and said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Well, a cult is defined as a cult of personality. Your community of people gathered around a central figure and he had the I he spoke too quickly. He spoke faster than his brain could move and said, "Well, what what's the cult of personality in that?" And I said, "Literally, Jesus,

who's that?"

No, but it was this funny moment of this Christian going, "What do you mean it's a cult?" I'm like, and and I feel like Burning Man is is Um, people are people want community so badly and people will form literal fabrications. I'm sorry. I don't mean to offend anybody, but like it it sounds to me the same as saying you believe in Santa Claus. Um, sorry, Santa is real. Um, sorry kids.

Uh, how dare I? Um, but but this is the effort through which people will go to achieve community. And I think the temple is such an incredible example of that is that you take people who are primarily non-religious, but we still need to grieve and we still need to mourn. And if you look at studies, and this is such a fascinating thing as an old choir kid, your brain patterns change when you sing with other people versus when you sing alone.

Your brain patterns change generally if you're singing at all because because breath and focus will will accomplish similar things to as meditation. But when you are doing something in unison with other people, your body changes scientifically. We all crave that. And this is this is what we see. This is this is Burning Man. And you have a community of people who have known each other for close to 30 years who are trying to do a thing together and a community that a lot of people go to Burning Man and they'll say, "Oh, I'm going with a different camp this year because I didn't like that camp. We don't have that luxury in Thunderdome for the most part. You have a fight with somebody, you break up with somebody, you don't like somebody, you're staying in camp. And so we see an evolution of character that a lot of other communities don't see because they'll just leave.

Yeah.

People are committed to doing this. And I as other people in camp take on more leadership and more management positions and I my ro role becomes more advisory, more ambassador are more um

yeah,

hands off.

I guess one last thing I wanted to talk to you about, but um

No, because like

I'm going to finish that. I'm going to finish that. And it it's it it becomes an incredible thing to which other people are drawn whether or not they like me, whether or not we're friends. And I think that that's critical for the evolution of Thunderdome is that it needs to continue on beyond

Exactly.

beyond me. So, what were you gonna say? Sorry.

Well, I was gonna say like Death Guild Thunderdome is probably one of the longest persisting theme camps in like Burning Man's history, right? And you're saying like it's been this tight-knit group of family and uh yeah, I mean like obviously it's like you can't do it for like forever or it's like, you know, you might want to take a year off or go travel in Europe or whatever, you know? It's like like uh how how do you handle like the the the transition? I mean, and do you

like and how do you feel like like newer young hear people coming along like will they will they continue the same traditions or you know will they they totally change it up and just like no I don't want to do this I want to do something else or we want to do this like what like eight hours a day or 12 hours a day or whatever

I mean the the group will do what the group wants to do

I'm not I'm not here to tell people what to do I'm here to empower people to do what the group wants to do I think a really common misconception of management is you're there to tell people what to do.

Have you Have you f****** met the people in Thunderdome? That's hilarious. Um, get a whole bunch of people with oppositional defiance disorder and try to manage them. Um, absolutely the f*** not. No. Um, the group wants what it wants. The group will say, "We want to do this."

Mhm.

And if one person suggests something in a meeting and 25 other people don't want to do it. They're not going to be quiet about it. So, a lot of it is fascinating because I don't even need to fight these battles. I don't need to fight the battle of whether we should buy a truck for camp because everybody in that community knows why it's a s***** idea. Sorry. Sorry, new folks. This is the joke is that is that you go through in the first year you're really enthusiastic and usually before you're a full member of camp, you will suggest at a meeting that we buy a truck and it it everybody will look at their watch at this point because it is you're on a timer first. year nervous, excited. Second year, you overdo it and you overcommit and you do too much and you bring too much. Third year, you start to get burned out and you're you're thinking, why am I why the f*** would I do this? Um, and then if you can survive the first five years, you'll definitely survive to 10 in camp. And if you survive past 10, you're that's it. Um, but it's funny. It's funny because there are these strict breaking points and we h we learn If somebody wants to take time off after year two or three, do not encourage them to not take time off.

Go say, "Go take a year. Go take a year." Because if you try to push through this, you're never coming back.

Yeah.

I burned out 2007. I only came for six days or something. And I I I took a step back from management.

I mean, I consider that my year my fourth year would have been my fourth year of management. So going forward, I mean, do you see the still the same time commitment and everything going forward or uh

I'm already doing so much less than I was doing, you know, pre- pandemic. I mean, and

um I used to drive the truck, like I used to be the one that drove the truck. I used to be the

No, people people have stepped up. So is it is there and this is the this is the the evolution. This has to be, right? Do I see the same time commitment? I already don't. I absolutely already don't. It's so much more um dispersed labor and management. I didn't run our fundraiser this year and it was super successful and the people who ran that kicked ass. Yes, it was incredible. I just had to repost on my socials. Like I didn't have to do anything. They're amazing. So I see I see stepping back. I see as long as this community goes to Burning Man, I will go with them.

Mhm.

I But I hope that people um um generationally who are doing more form it themselves with community at the center. The dome's not at the center of this.

Yeah. Wow. That's beautiful.

I think we've been going hour and 15.

That's what you said.

Yeah. That's it.

Thank you so much. This has been a wonderful interview.

Thank you, Andy.

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