EP 30 Metric

Episode 30 with Metric is out now. Meet Metric, a long-time resident of Gerlach and a pivotal figure in the structural evolution of Burning Man. The conversation traces his journey from a San Francisco sound engineer in the 1990s to the manager of the Black Rock Desert ranch highlights how individual initiative and "hustle" helped transform the event from a transient gathering into a year-round institutional presence. Key themes include the technical artistry of the "Man Crew," the preservation of regional pioneer history, and the transition of the Burning Man community from countercultural "freaks" to a permanent force for local civic activism and land stewardship. His story serves as an oral history, illustrating how the "shadow" of the event creates a lasting cultural and physical legacy in the Nevada desert well beyond the one-week festival.

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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. Is that gas? Oh no, that's that Andy. Today our guest is Metric, the one and only Metric. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much, Andy.

So, uh, where does it all begin with you? What was the first year you went to the play? Like, how did and what got you there?

Oh, well, the first year I went to Burning Man was 1998.

Okay.

But I had been hearing about Burning Man for some time before that. I I lived in the uh Alamo Square neighborhood and so I would see Larry Harvey at the store buying vegetables. And I had friends who were in uh I was a sound engineer in San Francisco in the 90s among other things. And uh people were telling me about this and in 97 friends came back and they said, "Matt, you have to go to Burning Man." And so I started planning for Burning Man 98 in October of 97. And we did a fundraiser with my friends who were in bands and we uh basically went uh to the playa and did Mr. Magcoo goes camping was the name of our our camp and we stole Esplanade Front property. Uh we just hijacked it. We got there on Tuesday which was early back then

and we bribed our theme camp placement uh person Eric Pule French Frog with uh whiskey and uh smooth talk and we built our our reflective pyramid thing where we didn't belong. And then uh Harley Beerman, nay Berman, now Dubois,

uh came and told us that we had to move. And I explained to her that we had bribed Eric Fair and Square and that it would ruin our our event, that we had worked hard to make this happen. And uh to her credit, she heard us and went and talked to the very angry people who had cards printed with their address and everything and convinced them to move down a little bit and make some space and we gave them mushrooms and whiskey and they became great friends and I was hooked and that was uh it was I I just loved Burning Man that whole experience of making it happen for ourselves. We were the only rock and roll only rock and roll on the Esplanade probably ever.

So who did you camp with? Like who'd you go with? Were these like returning uh burners?

Oh no. Uh most of the people that I camp with were my friends from San Francisco who never went to Burning Man again after that.

Really?

Yeah. They were uh they were in their bands. They had their other jobs and and so forth. I was at the time working we've kind of skipped to uh so that was my first Burning Man experience.

Yeah.

Uh you know, but now now we're talking about a little bit what it was like before Burning Man. If I talk about these guys, they were I was in San Francisco. in the '9s. Great time to be there. Uh the.com thing hadn't really happened. The internet hadn't really happened and uh it was easy to find a place to live. I think my rent was 425 was the most I ever paid in rent. I lived in the lower hat and uh my friends were all in bands and we I got them gigs at places and became a sound engineer and I met the year I moved to San Francisco was the year Burning Man and moved to the Black Rock Desert and I met a lot of people around this cacophony society thing and

Yeah. Did you ever do any of those activities?

Uh well, we made up our own cacophony style activities like we took a rubber raft down to the lake in Golden Gate Park and went and freed up the paddle boats that they just parked out on an island there.

And uh and so and then we just paddle them around at night. and people would look at us, but they couldn't get at us because we're out in the water. And we just paddled around in the lake. And then we put the boats back and went back in our rubber raft. And so, so when I heard of cacophony style events, I think it was on the Wayne. Now, I certainly heard of the very first Santaacons that were happening and although I myself didn't dress up, I definitely went and participated in some of that. I saw it as kind of the tradition of the uh the the original uh SF Mime Troop would do theatrical uh events to draw attention to political like they would play war down Market Street and shoot each other and they would fall down and and do a chalk line around them on the street then they would get up and continue playing playing war and it was their anti-war thing that they did. And so when I saw Santa Con I was like ah this is this older San Francisco tradition that's being carried on. It's kind of like you know, uh, uh, sabotage, you know, a monkey, you know, in the works kind kind of art

and, uh, and and so that that appealed to me. But I was sound engineer, so I was always working during the summer until finally my friends convinced me to go.

Wow. Well, there's one little slight off tangent thing because I actually lived San Francisco like 94 to 2001. Got a very similar time.

Yeah. But I was more like like No Valley, but um,

you know, San Francisco Mine Troop. Didn't they do this thing like in Dolores Park? I thought I remember every year they had some sort of like big uh I don't know. I'm not getting off topic, but I think it was a big spectacle that they had like in Delaware Park. It was kind of like their political kind of theater thing, but

spectacle.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So, 98 you go and so like but everybody you go with doesn't go again. So, like uh so you're hooked like how do you how do you survive? What do you do after that?

I was working at the Institute for Health Policy Studies at uh UCSF when I first went

and uh and I went again in 99 and this time I went with my friend his whole group from Cord Madera were Temple of Ishtar, not Pepe Ozan's opera thing. It was a tantric workshop camp. So it was uh they were swingers. It was a sex camp and uh that really wasn't my thing. I was the the production guy, you know. So, I went and built the thing that was the structure and, you know, and it was great. I got propositioned by a lot of women, but I was like, "Yeah, it's not really my bag." And and uh there was one woman I wish had propositioned me and she's the one who didn't, but uh you know, that's how that goes. And uh and so I I went around I set up the camp and then just kind of ran around and tried to see where I might fit in. Geez, I remember that year uh there was a capitalist pig camp where Some people took over that guy's camp and burned it down. That was horrible. And uh and also there was a Russian like spacecraft that fell to Earth and it was like

I remember like cuz it was like around sunset and it was like we're like the funniest thing

like it happens long enough that you were like oh

it was funny because like I was telling people this experience like we're it was sunset and it was like just we're like walking along the play and we look up at the sky and like in the spirit of Burning Man we were just like How the f*** did somebody do that? You know, like we're like maybe there's kites maybe there balloons, you know, like and it was it was something like nine months later where they were just like, oh yeah, at that particular time and and inclination and everything that that booster that's been up in the air in space for like a decade or more, whatever has just happened to come through the sky and was like it's just one of those like bizarre.

We're in Nevada and in Nevada you can see that kind of a thing really easily where You might not have seen it if you were in San Francisco or LA or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, did you stay with Temple of Ishtar or or was that the only year that

was just a one a one-year thing and I was trying to figure out where to fit in and so I went to a Radio Free Burning Man cuz I did radio in college in Bingmpington, New York and I I figured maybe I would find my niche there. And so I volunteered and Gordon I think was the name of the guy and he was like, "Uh, okay. I need you to move that stuff around or and he was really unclear cuz he wasn't a department or anything like this. He was just doing radio out there

and and so but after that I went back and it was 99 going on 2000 and I remember it was New Year's Eve and I said, "I want to live at Burning Man." And I was being figurative when I was saying this. But little did I know the next year I I stopped working at uh school of medicine and my uh last job was a sound guy at the Fairmont Hotel and I put in for two months off to go to Burning Man and they laid me off. They said uh

two months

we'll just lay you off. We'll give you unemployment. And so I volunteered for for Burning Man. Uh and I didn't know all I knew was uh Harley was a cool person and there were rangers but they didn't really get back in touch with me so it seemed like they weren't very organized but uh I knew that there were greeters and so I started going to greeter meetings and uh this was pretty early on they asked me did I have skills I was like you know I you know some carpentry skills so they sent me out to the work ranch to make the first lane delineator obelisks they were these wooden uh pyramid structures and I went out there. It was Memorial Day uh in 2000 and saw the ranch and it was all this junk and a few shipping containers and people and we would walk around and clean up in the desert and there was a kind of a makeshift shade shop stretched between two shipping containers with some power tools and I and I made these pyramid things and they're like, "Hey, come back for Fourth of July." So, I did. I came back Fourth of July and they're like, "Stay, stay. The event is soon." I was like, "No, no, I have to go back and take care of some things, but I'll be right back." And so I came back July 16th, 2000. And that ended up being the date that I moved to Nevada and the Black Rock Desert.

Wow.

Little did I know there were there were little like I wasn't even clear on it was like I was working uh subconsciously to that end with without me like I brought all of my books in milk crates and put them on a pallet and cover. But I wasn't moving there. I just, you know, I thought maybe it'd be good to have my books nearby. But then after the So then I volunteered for DPW. That was the first year. And uh

But did you still have like an apartment like in San Francisco?

Yeah. Yeah, I had a subletter in the apartment in the lower hate right across from Midtown.

Oh yeah.

And uh yeah, that's where I lived.

Uh most of the time I was in San Francisco, but I moved around 16 places in 10 years. Uh, never did find put down roots there. But so I ended up not doing greeters. The one person I greeted was David Best in his rocket car. That was and uh and I think we had some whiskey or something like that. And then I just abandoned all my shifts and and went and did DPW and I did survey with Coyote and I did uh just just all the things. And in the DPW parade and and also on the ranch I could see that there was no structure that here was this place that was performing these services for all the volunteers and staff and it needed structure. And I just started filling that vacuum, making sure there was gas in the generator and running extension cords and uh fixing shade and all of this stuff. And finally, it was time to go in October and I remember I took the TV set were part of Jim Mason's installation. He had these puppets that went up and down with the world stock exchanges. So, they were hooked to the internet and they would go up and down with that was the idea anyways. And he had all these TVs that were kind of props and I brought them to the first uh decompression at Cafe Cooko in San Francisco. And I had helped install the sound system there. So, I knew the owners and I knew Bernie man people. So, I set up I ended up sleeping in in my truck at the decompression and then going back and my roommate at the time punched me in the eye and said, "When are you moving out?" And I said, "Tomorrow." I loaded my truck and came back out to Gerlock. And Flynn Mauy, who is the uh director of operations for DPW at the time, said, "What are you doing here? We don't have a job for you." I was like, "Oh, you know, I know Tom Williams and Joan Grant, who was leasing property to Bernie man at the time." And I knew these people. I was like, I'll just go work for Tom building fence for the Jassics who owned Fly Ranch at the time. And uh and that's what I did. I moved to Fly Ranch in November of 2000 and lived there until the following spring, which was when Bernie man bought the 200 acre property. And then they hired me in April. And by May, I had the title ranch manager.

Wow. So when they bought the ranch, they bought you too, right? got me. Yes. I used to commute from Fly Ranch to the Burning Man ranch on a bicycle.

Wow.

For for the Yeah. So I commuted to the ranch via bicycle. Uh that was interesting. I think I did it once to be honest, but Oh, and then it was Draa the Dragon. So 2001 was my first year as ranch manager. We built the Quanset hut. Uh the man was built out on the ranch for the first time. Previously it was like civic center and so I was part of part of that. Uh uh Spiral was the head of the man crew back then and uh it was it was all very good experience. I started to build the infrastructure of the ranch. Uh we we had an actual shop now. We got better at doing things. We had a what we called the beach club back then. It was uh all made of mobile homes in a in a U shape with shade structure. So think of a Burning Man camp. That's basically and we had on the ranch what they called last camp, which was basically first camp from Burning Man rebuilt on the ranch. So, all the LLC members had their RVs around a shade structure deck thing. That was last camp. And I remember when I met Will Roger and he invited me over to the camp and we were all drinking Makers Mark and we were testing the valves on the propane canisters. How you do that is you throw it into the burning uh burn barrel and then they explode. mode. So that's a failure. And so we were doing this and someone had just thrown canister into and I said, "Watch this." And I went like this with my arms out in front and my and my legs wide and the propane canister exploded and shot out between my legs

and flame came and it like kissed my eyebrows and singed me a little bit. And and this is while Mr. Clean and all these people were watching and they were like Oh, and so they started calling it metrics mark after that and thus the legend was born. But uh

yeah, so it was, you know, it was uh very, you know, that I could come in there and create a role for myself. That's just how it was back then. Obviously, it's not like that anymore. There are people like Flynn Mauy, who was a survival research labs guy and uh and uh he was the the director of operations out there. He was the guy who really had the knowhow, some contractor experience from Texas, which is where he he's moved back to Texas now. Uh, and there were other people like uh Bob Stall, Billy Bob I called him. This is funny. And he was a very kind of matterof fact softspoken guy, but he knew everything about every tool, every type of of building discipline, every kind of knot. And he started the DPW manual because there was all this information that he wanted people to know. And uh so these were some of my early influences out there.

Yeah. So I mean were you kind of like a lonely figure in this or was it like a small group of people? I mean like I just kind of I mean because you were went to Bernie in '98 and already like you know 2000 you're moving out to Gurac. I mean it would be kind of like a lonely thing to do if you're just by yourself. I mean were there others that were kind of doing the same thing too?

Well there There were some other people out there.

Yeah.

Uh at first Harlon Hollander Moses of uh Megashir Ranch, he was out there and for a while and also there was a couple Elena and John and uh they they were living out there for a while but but not none of them really. Oh, and even there was uh Bill Plemens was a fellow a former Marine who lived out there. Very sweet man. And uh Dust balls, Mark Church, who uh Yeah, but these were all Bernie man and they they they were kind of out there working these things. But I I don't I I don't know what it was that I brought. I guess it was a combination of uh kind of a outgoing character and uh multiple disciplines and you know that I could do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and and also yeah, I don't know. I just just kind of went out there and there There have always been other people around. When I first came out, there was dialup internet in town, so we had internet and that meant I could stay in touch with family and friends. And then not for anything, you hop in the car, 5 hours later, you're in San Francisco. So, you know, even today, I commute to the Bay Area sometimes for things. It's just it's just part of what you do. Uh but uh but it was, you know, that solitude after living I remember when I first moved out there, uh, people said, "Oh, that kid, he's never gonna make it out here." And Cowboy Carl, Carl Brooker, force recon marine

and fence captain said, "Mark my words, that boy is going to end up running this place." And that was in 2000 when I was still lying to myself about moving out there. And it came to pass within a year that I was running the ranch. Uh, it was just uh it it was just something that that pulled me in. You you know, back when I first lived in San Francisco, Isco in 1991 and I hooked up with all the artist friends and you know Grateful Dead tour heads. I'd followed the Grateful Dead on my motorcycle from upstate New York to California and lived in Arcada for a while before moving to San Francisco. So I knew all the dead head, you know, uh people selling stuff in the parking lots, you know, was a community that I knew. So I knew this kind of vagabond community of people with hustles were out there in the world. That's what DPW was, were people who would go from circus ridiculous to Burning Man and then go uh trim weed in California. And they had like always the next hustle, New Orleans, Humboldt, wherever it was they were going. And so so I although I hadn't done that so much, I knew that that type of life was possible. And I had done it a little bit uh you know 10 years prior, you know, 1920 when I moved to San Francisco.

But like in 2000, I mean, I mean that was probably an interesting kind of like early growth year like transformative because I mean Bernie man up until like what 96 97 or something was always like the people just kind of bringing everything from San Francisco to there right I mean I'm sure there wasn't really like the project didn't really have like a a steady presence

no there were there were six shipping containers now there are hundreds probably there were six semi-trailers it just exploded Uh, one of the things I came up with the uh, when you look at the org shipping containers on the Playa, they have SC and a number on them. That was my original I did the first inventory for Bernie man on the ranch. We had to come up with a labeling system.

So, I did SC and then it was uh, PC for private container versus shipping container. And and they've continued that vein and that's how they in they score all of their buildings that uh, for inventory. purposes. So that's my tiny little legacy of uh Bernie man. But I I just there was a community there that for the month before the event and for the month after and it was the thing that I always love about Bernie man. It was like the convention of freaks like me. It was that guy from whatever town, Denver, Seattle, Portland, uh you know, Virginia, Richmond that was like the the wingnut freak, you know, punk rocker, weird artist person, and we all got together for a convention and showed off all of our weird s***. And uh and and that's what Bernie man really was to me back then. I was like, who who wouldn't want to be a part of it? And uh like when I was early in San Francisco, we had this meeting of the minds of of my friends where we all sat around and ideiated about what's possible in the future. You know, talk about kids in their 20s on hallucinogen. San Francisco.

And uh that one of the things that came out of that was wouldn't it be great if we could organize a community of artists living in a rural place where it was self-supporting and that was the work that people did. And so I guess I was trying to realize that dream to

Well, I mean I'm sure like you went there and you and you're helping with DPW and this and that and like you're saying it's like oh we're here for a couple of months and you're just like this is pretty good. Let's keep it going.

Well, You know, Exodus, everybody gives you all their leftover booze and food and pot and everything and it's all there in the shipping container. So, what do you need? You don't have to pay rent. There's a travel trailer to stay in.

You have to pay for food. There's cans of chili and ramen. Uh, you know, the the water comes from a spring over there.

Uh, actually from the desert it would be Oh, wait.

Oh, there you can see it flowing back.

Yeah. And so, and and so what would happened back then too is that you had these people who just wouldn't leave and they weren't necessarily contributing so much.

So we would do this thing well, oh everyone, it's time to go. That's what decompression would be was I'd round everybody up and like, okay, we're going to decompression, folks. And off we went to San Francisco. I remember giving this guy Cavon Pritchard uh a danger ranger uh knew that we had known him from San Francisco. He was a guy who kind of went he became a kind of a psychotic homeless person, but he used to be a cool guy in the same cacophony, you know, the circles in San Francisco, but he was fully gone, like long fingernails, bad smell, not speaking in coherent sentences. And he was just in Gerlock

with nowhere really to go. And I brought him to Reno and put him on a bus to San Francisco

and That was just the best that I could do for him at the time. I remember I visited him in jail once in San Francisco when he was still coherent. How about that? Anyway, all these people I think he might have worked on man crew a long time ago,

which was what I ended up doing. So, you know, my Bernie man, I was the ranch manager till ' 04.

Okay. So, 2001 to 2004.

2001 to 2004. Uh, I I I made a movie with uh Caleb Shawber aka Shooter that you can still find on YouTube, Black Rock Station, and it's a welcome to Black Rockck Station. And I and I give a tour of the ranch to demystify it for Wo County. That was the purpose of that. They were uh there was a whole thing where Wo County and the neighbors got together and were fighting Burning Man for lack of permits on the ranch.

And I became involved in all of that as ranch manager, made this film, and then I got appointed to the Gerlock Empire Citizen Advisory Board, which is a Wo County advisory position, and I did that for 15 years.

So, is that like a elected thing or like a government?

Appointed position. It's an appointed volunteer position. It doesn't really have any authority. We just talk about permits that are up for consideration to the planning commission in Wo County and give feedback and and hold community meetings to get so it's a way for the community and I even ran a series of facilitated meetings with the community about what they thought the future of the community should be back and this was the other thing that made me get in the Bernie man was uh community activism. I started to become politically aware in San Francisco and I wanted uh I worked on Tom Amiano's campaign for mayor for example.

Oh yeah.

And I wanted to do more of that. Well, it was easier to do when in a small community with some focus like there was out here and so so I got involved in that way. It wasn't a lot of power but it was being active in the community.

Yeah. So what was the name of that commission again?

Uh the Gerlock Empire Citizen Advisory Board. I took over the position made vacant when Bruno Selme stepped down.

And uh and then in that first year after I left uh uh the work ranch. Uh somehow I uh the woman had called me and asked was I interested in buying property in town

and I said uh sure let me get back to you. I called my friend Exactly Joe Olivier

and uh and I said because he had been out doing uh DPW work weekends and we we hit it off. We both helped Lady B with her trailer or you know and stuff like this

and uh and and I said, "Hey, any chance you'd loan me $15,000? to buy some property in Gerlock. He said, "Sure." He he cut a cashier's check and gave it to me and I paid him back over five years. And uh that's where I'm sitting right now. I've been here for 20 uh 20 since 2004. So 21 years on this property here.

Wow.

Yeah.

Is it like in the town of Gerlock or is it like outside?

Yeah, in the town of Gerlock.

Oh,

I live on El Trend Street right across from the Gerlock Estates. The uh Burning Man trailer. park.

So you lived in San Francisco like almost 10 years or something and then uh you kind of transition out there to Gerlock. I've been there what 20 some odd years now?

25 years now.

25 years. You don't miss the hub of the big city.

Um

we go back and visit. Right.

I go back. Well, so I I got married in 2019.

Oh, congratulations.

I met my wife at a new Mooney party uh after 4th of July. So new Mooney where people come out here uh take hallucinogens and run around naked in the desert around in the summertime when it's not Burning Man when it looks like this.

And uh and I knew some of the people there. I had just graduated. This is 2018. I had just graduated from UNR after uh we're we're skipping around my timeline here, but uh so I did uh Burning Man and then I did uh Friends of Black Rockck High Rock. I was their executive director and also had Black Rockck Rental. my rental company. I had a fleet of 12 travel trailers I rented out at Bernie man.

Uh but so after uh Black Rockck Rental, I went back to school. I got my bachelor's of philosophy at University of Nevada Reno. And I had just finished that degree with a business minor, of course, in case I needed to get a job. And uh and I went out to this party. I met my wife and uh and uh we hit it off splendidly. And uh before long, I moved moved in with her in Berkeley and went to grad school.

So I

You left Gerlac to go to B back to the Bay Area. Wow.

I kept I kept the house here.

Uh Low Dog, who's another longtime DPW person, he lives here in the house with us.

Uhhuh.

And uh he lived in the in the single wide that I had then. We have since replaced that with a new manufactured home. Uh so we have a nice new house with an extra bedroom for Low Dog. And uh and Otto, who you mentioned earlier, he's coming to stay out here for a week in a few.

Oh, really?

He's my good friend. I I've been in touch with him ever since, you know, 2002 we met.

Yeah. Yeah. I hope

I know he's been kind of down in the dumps, you know, with uh his like medical like uh situation and everything, but uh

Yeah.

He carries on.

Yeah.

Yeah. So,

long story short, I got married and we uh we go back and forth to Berkeley from time to time and you know, we have friends in Grass Valley So sometimes we make it take two days to get to the Bay Area. And uh you know I went to Unscrews the Santa Cruz regional.

We didn't even go to Berkeley. We just went to Unscrews and came back out here to Gerlock.

And you know that's all right. You just put the car in cruise control

and next thing you know you're in Gerlock. You know the last hour and a half it's the two lane highway. It's pretty much straight. It's not that hard.

So uh do you work for Burning Man now or was last not for Bernie man. Last thing I did for Bernie man was man crew. Man crew. And uh and actually man crew was just here and uh they asked me to come back and so next year I might go back to man crew.

I did that from well I say 2001 when I first helped spiral find the compound miter saw in the uh in the uh cafe aftermath shipping container so that he could build the man that year. That was the first year that I helped build the man and I can continued helping and then after I left the work ranch uh 2005 I did my own art at Burning Man, the Granite Skunk Coal Power LLC. There was a plan to build a coal burning power plant near Gerlock and a local rancher cgrapher Rumsy Dave Ramsey uh gave me 10 grand to produce a artwork in protest of the power plant, the Granite Skunk Coal Power LLC. So, I built a coal burning power plant on the Playa and burned it down. And inside was all the information about how why this was a bad idea and how to call your Congress critter to protest and so forth. And they never did build a coal burning power plant out here. So, it worked. Uh, but so that that year I camped outside what they called Little Gerlock, which was all man crew people. It was Little Gerlock was their camp with a view of the coal burning power plant and They and they said, "Hey, you should come and join Man Crew." And I said, "Oh, that's a great idea." And so I started actually going and participating in Man Crew, which I did straight up till 2019.

Oh, yeah.

Which is

which I built the man in 2019. Uh and uh actually my wife and her sister participated that year as well. And then uh I didn't go to the event that year, but I did build the man, but I didn't go to Burning Man 2019 because I started grad school.

So what's the whole process with building the Yeah, I guess it's what what now? May or something? I mean, they

they just build it up there like on the ranch. Uh

they do.

Yep.

They build it in the shop on the ranch. Uh it takes about a week. Uh you know, it could go faster, but uh doing it quickly isn't the point. The the point is to uh do it well. I mean, we do things like we put the screws in so that when you look up you can't see them cuz the man is up. So when you're looking up at the man, we try to make sure that all that when wherever possible the screw is coming from above down so that you can't see the screw holes.

Uh and uh sometimes people have even gone over and and tried to uh you know putty over all the screw holes that I mean so people that's the point of the the man build is that it's like you know people are rubbing on it and sanding on it. And you know they make a brain. So they made a brain. They brought in Gerlock and Manro had a big party and I went to the saloon in town and and everybody signs the brain. And I got to sign the brain again.

Uh this time I put Eert, my last name, but with the be E capitalized. So B. Right.

Well, actually my um just my my listeners might know episode 18 with Dan Miller because that's that's

Yeah, he was there. Yeah, but the brain man the brain of the man is his project and he he takes

takes it around and and so he builds it out of like the scraps.

Well, scraps, but yeah, I mean it's all this pretty high quality wood stuff that's around there.

A lot of scraps that that because you're cutting ribs, you know, out of they don't sell, you know, narrow sheets of got the whole sheet of plywood. That's that's where Frog Bat came from as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

Auto the scraps of the man were sitting What do we do? And uh and we were all Otto probably told the story. We're all at the hotring uh in the wintertime and the frogs are chirping and the bats are swooping and we came up with the unholy communion of the frogs and the bats at the springs in the winter that spawned the frog bat. Frog Yeah. And then he built the frog bat used to be small, but it got bigger cuz it eats all those hippies. Oh,

it gets fat. Yeah. So, how many people how many people built the man then? Cuz remember like seeing some of these pictures. It's like what, a couple dozen of them or something?

Yeah, a couple dozen. Right. Uh we counted 22 uh eight women, so slightly more than a third were women, but there were three people not in the photo apparently. So that was about 25 people. And of those people who weren't in the photo, I don't know how many were women. But uh but it was my wife who pointed out, "Oh, it's a bunch of dudes." But no, I mean, we've had Meredith and uh Uh yeah, there's lots of people been on the Sweet Thing.

Uh uh Susan Strahan Bernoski

was uh a dear friend who's passed. Uh she was

and of course the Muse

uh Muse uh Williams who uh still works for the man. I think she works media um stuff. She's she's in that picture. There's a classic man crew picture with me with the long hair and the and she's the you know looking very fetching sitting down. right right next to me there.

Muse. Yeah. So, uh yeah, generally it's about 20. They used to say, "Oh, you're elitist." Which didn't occur to me. They just asked me and I did it. Uh

you know, but

what do you mean by that?

Well, they said, "Oh, you know, you got it's like it was kind it's this weird cat. It's like it's a very specific thing." And they're like, "Oh, well, that's not real DPW." But I mean, that's how it's like fence crew bloods and shade crew crips. You know, you if you don't actually see the person working, then it didn't actually happen. You know, our crew works harder than anybody.

And actually, little known fact, the entire event could not happen if it were not for the lamplighters.

They are the most important department.

Everything is on them. Well, no. This is what a lamp lighter told me once. I'm just repeating what I what you know I this is knowledge that I have learned. DPW, nah. Rangers, whatever. law enforcement fit lamp lighters. They're the one.

So, how is the institutional knowledge preserved like in terms of like building the man? Like I mean, is it the same design? Like it it just like goes back all those years or and is the same,

you know, there was a year Mary Poppins took over there building the man in Reno at the building on Fourth Street and he had heard that the man was 40 feet tall. and he knew he had these plans and it it it wasn't working. It was 40 ft tall and so there we were building and I actually built the man that year. I was like what what are we doing with all this that we're building these box beams or whatever. So as a matter of fact the man is 33 feet tall. He's 40t tall with the arms raised.

So he was scaling up all of the lumber by whatever percent that is. So sometimes and also you know the shape of the face of the man has changed slightly really there's like the earlier shape and then the the slightly newer shape and so you have to make sure you get those angles right when you're making making the uh the jawline of the man

well for listeners at home so like it used to be that he used to have more of an angular jaw now he's more of a this square jaw man

yeah I don't know you know I mean you put on a few pounds it's just what happens with age you know your jawline just you know, thickens out a little. I think thicken out a little bit.

Yeah, we got some jowls on the man, you know, maybe a chip tooth.

Wow. So, uh, so I mean, do you still go to the Bernie man every year? I mean, you're right there in

I missed 2019

and then 2020 and 2021 were the co years, those which was really convenient for me because it meant that I could uh attend my classes uh virtually in Nevada and then go I was I'm also active with a group uh this falls under uh impacts of Bernie man on my life as well I moved to Nevada I've lived in Nevada for 25 years now and uh and and I I uh uh I so I do go to Bernie man I did I've helped with Temple of Transition uh Kiwi Chris Henkins is uh someone with whom I' I've known for a long time we helped build Megatropolis Auto and I uh in uh at Fred Hagammeister's house in Sparks, the Black Rockck burner hostel. Uh that was a good long time ago and it was the same if you look Megatropolis was essentially the same idea as Burn Wall Street prefab stackable bits that make a city.

Ah

and uh and uh and same with Temple of Transition stackable, you know, it's a big wedding cake. It's stackable things. And so uh so I I helped with Megatron. I helped with Burn Wall Street. Um, of course I I helped with all of those frog bat things, but that isn't Burning Man. That was just Fourth of July.

I've camped at Lamplighters. I've camped at Camp Carp. Um, geez, where else have I Oh, camped at JubJub. Jubjub is uh used to be manbased. Used to be its own crew and it was mostly uh Reno guys. Lou Zhommeer, Brian Smith, Andy Looney. uh Ludy, Andy Luna, uh Scott, um uh Dundus, all these Reno guys. And then they had the uh their bar was Jub Jub, Jub Jub's Thirst Parlor, and then that became a an actual bar in Reno that uh everyone used to hang out. It was kind of like a punk rock bar that eventually had a stage. I think Gu played there.

No way.

Yeah. Yeah. Really? But uh but yeah, so so I I camped with Jub there for a while, probably around uh I remember being there 2007208 uh because it was American dream year

and uh and I remember that I was doing the man security at the event and in order to slow down the line so you can't have too many people up on the structure at a time. It just it just doesn't hold. And so you have a line of people who want to go up there and they're while they're waiting I would ask them civics's questions. Uh what is the third amendment? What are the four parts of the first amendment. Uh and and and so it was a trivia thing to see, you know, how much people knew about civics cuz American dream. Uh

that year I painted my truck like an American flag. It was a a F250 I got from Exactly. And it was red and I painted the back with white and red stripes and then the whole hood I painted blue with white stars. So it was the American truck

and uh uh Reverend Billy gave a speech from my truck out by the man that year.

I think I remember that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Um but so I still go I used to camp with Mansonian Institute for Urban Studies which is a uh was exactly Joe Olivier's camp. Uh but it's but he has not been going to Burning Man as much. And also uh that was part of so I I mentioned that I had a rental business. I used to rent trailers to people and what I would do is I would bring them out early and stage them on the desert and use them to support the temple crew or other crews who were working out there and they would stay in them and then clean them up for me to deploy for the paying customer who was coming for the week of the event.

And then similarly, I would let people stay in them after the event as long as I could until I had to go and put them away. And that was part of what I thought was what how you were supposed to do it back then. And it just over time got harder and harder to do that that sort of thing. I used to have some preferred status and then it made it got to the point where Bernie man didn't allow that kind of activity at all.

So are you Flash's competition?

Uh I thought there was enough work for so Flash does no running water. Uh and he proudly asserts that whereas I actually tried to uh I provided water and generators. You know I had people who flew in on their own plane. I would pick them up They lo load their stuff over the fence into their trailer. They'd tie down their plane and then I'd go drop them off at their camp and they when they were done they would just leave and I would go pick up their trailer when you know before cleanup.

Can you explain to the our listeners like what it what it means when people say that and I think Flash would even say this himself that he's like Bernie man's biggest slum lord.

Uh yeah. Well, Ply Slum lord is a whole other person. Uh yeah, I was not I I just had uh my people, some people uh most people were satisfied. A few people were dissatisfied. They thought that there should have been a mint on the pillow and that, you know, and oh my god, there's dust in this closet. You know, I didn't charge a cleaning fee. Uh so I was like, well, you know, I guess you get your deposit back then. Oh, wait, you didn't pay a deposit. So I I did it sort of in the flash style, but in my own way and uh and ultimately I liquid sold all of them uh by 2019, but Mansonian was like the last camp that was a a client also. I would either rent them trailers or and uh and it it just got to be where uh I wanted to do my other projects and the only way to uh you know uh to kind of break the trend of me being the go-to fix it guy was to just get out of the camp and go do something else. Uh and now my wife is Ranger Little Debbie. And uh she was a ranger in 97 before I ever even went to Bernie man uh for a few years. And now and she has a bunch of her old friends have been rangering for a long time and she's gotten back into it and uh so we camp with uh Annex of the Rangers.

It's called the Annex. Last year we called it NX Camp and we did Jesus Christ Superstar and on all of the little wafers there was NX and Uh, and I played Judas.

I was Judas. So, we screen the whole thing, but then we dressed up in costumes and acted it out and sang along with the movie.

Wow.

Uh, at NX Camp. So, uh, I also do, uh, I used to do Friends of Black Rockck High. I was their first executive director. And I used to do the BLM interpretive camp at Burning Man for several years.

Oh, really?

From 2007 or eight until 2012. So I was down in front with the Earth Guardians and the Rangers and I had a camp and you would come in and I would tell you about the immigrant trails and John C. Fremont and the Pi Pyramid Lake Pyute Wars and

so what was that called again? She said from 2008 to 2012 it was the Black Rockck what?

It was Friends of Black Rockck High. I was the executive director.

Oh

they're still here but uh but I left them in 2012 did Burn Wall Street and then uh went back to school and and uh then finished my bachelor's degree after friends of Black Rockck and then my master's degree and now I'm

pardon.

So what do you do now there?

I'm stewards of the Black Rockck Desert. That's black stewwards.org.

Oh,

and we are similarly a public lands nonprofit partner to the BLM, but our interest is more in the offhighway vehicle community and people who use their vehicles off the highway in the Black Rock Desert, which by the way is every single person who drives to Bernie man. Your vehicle is now an offhighway vehicle at Burning Man in the National Conservation Area. But what I'm interested in is this Memorial Day is Black Rockck rendevous. And so, uh, this podcast will come out after this Memorial Day, but I will be conducting an immigrant trail tour on Sunday, uh, May 25th.

And I I will prepare a little booklet that I hand to people and it will have the history of John C. Fremont, Kit Carson second expedition uh Jesse Applegate and uh Peter Lassen for whom the Applegate Lass and immigrant trail are named uh and also uh talk just basically talking about the history of the immigrant trail and I'll take people from Black Rockck to Soldier Meadows along the immigrant trail showing them his uh historical points of interest along the way. So, does any of that trail like physically like still exist like the wagon ruts or anything?

That's correct. There are places where you can literally still see the wagon ruts.

Wow.

And uh I mean there's uh organizations that like Oregon California Trails Association or Trails West. Trails West has the T markers that you see made out of railroad rail.

Yeah.

And and but you know what I've seen with a lot of these these groups is that they age out. So the octag I met were all in their 80s and 90s and you know even I I participate in the Nevada Historical Society. We just we just went to their event. Now that was a little bit more because people are recognized for their historic buildings. But did you know that the Reno Historical Society event had an open bar? Neither did I till I got there. But wow, you know, I mean

try to attract the younger folks.

How do I get to be a member of this group? But uh but I went there as a clamper and I want to talk briefly. I mentioned them before. So Clamposphitis is a historical society throughout the West, mostly in California and Nevada. And all of those Reno uh Jub man-based guys, they were all clampers. I didn't know what a clamper was, but there was a guy, my good friend Gino Oliver, and he worked as a volunteer for me at the interpretive camp, the BLM camp, and he would dress in period gear and talk about these historical people in the Black Rock Desert. Well, there was a year I had a cancellation for 33 foot RV. I said, "Hey, Gino, why don't you stay in this RV?" And I and I had the Friends of Black Rockck pay $1,000 to my rental company to pay for the RV rental for for Gino. And he was like, "This is great. You should join EClampus Vitus." He had been a clamper since well, he was the uh humbug back in 1980. The noble grand humbug is the head of each chapter. Okay. There dozens of chapters mostly through California, Nevada, but also Arizona, uh, Colorado, uh, uh, yeah, just all throughout the West. Uh, and so I went and I I became a member of EClampus Vitus and after, uh, I left Friends of Black Rockck, I became more active and became their uh, noble grand humbug in 2020, which was, that's why I say it was very convenient for me because I was able to uh, take my classes in Virginia. which is where our clubhouse is, and uh finish my class at 6:00 and then go gave in the meeting at 7:00. And uh what we do is we put historical monuments at places usually about mining history, but also a lot of saloons and brothel throughout the West and place places that might otherwise go unrecognized. Uh when I was the humbug, I did my monument at Empire. So when you drive past Empire, you'll see a Nevada concrete monolith with a granite plaque embedded in it. And that's that's what I built as my historical monument when I was the humbug. And it reads like the beginning of nomad land. It talks about the uh US gypsum sheetrock manufacturing plant that used to be there.

Wow, that's incredible. All right, I think this kind of gets us onto our next portion of the show. Where did it all begin with little baby metric? Where'd you grow up? You said you came from what? Upstate New York. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, I was, uh, you know, born in Syracuse.

Okay.

Uh, my dad is from Asiggo, New York, is a little town north of Syracuse. Uh, Anandaga County. Well, I think asiggo is its own county. Anandaga is Syracuse. But, uh, but I lived there till I was three. My folks split. Uh, we lived for a while near Philadelphia in Collingswood, New Jersey. But then, uh, uh, we all moved to my brother, sister, mother, and stepfather. to Alexandria, Virginia, which is outside of DC. So, I lived there my formative years, uh, 1976 to 1988. Uh, so usually when people say where I'm from, I say Alexandria because that's where I went to high school. TC Williams, remember the Titans?

Denzel Washington movie. Remember?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's where I Yeah. Yeah. Alexandria has the lowest amount of African-American home ownership and DC has the highest. that tells you a lot about the willing social segregation of the area around DC. Uh but uh you know and that's the kind of stuff you find out about in a grad school. When I was there, I didn't figure that out till I went from the Catholic school to the public school and I was like, I see the black kids in the hallway. Why aren't they in any of my classes?

Was because they're in the regular classes. Oh. Oh, you know, I was in the AP classes. There were like two black kids. in there. So, it was this weird segregation that was still going on right in the public school in the city of Alexandria.

Oh, yeah.

So, you graduated high school, what, 88, you said?

Uh, 88. Graduated high school.

And actually, I left before I was done and I was able to finish my uh final exams at my dad's in upstate New York. So, when I was 18, I moved. I had to get out of my mom's house, moved up to my dad's in Bingmpington. I went to Sunni Bingmpington. for a year did radio WHRW 90.5 FM and uh and met all the dead heads that I then went on Grateful Dead tour and a bunch of them moved to San Francisco when I did. So I knew some people from college in San Francisco. Uh they were all seniors where I would have been a freshman. Uh so I moved to uh so lived in New York for a little over a year, bought a motorcycle, followed the Grateful Dead to California. Um ended up in San Francisco. And uh yeah, you know, I I did I was a sound engineer eventually. Uh before that, I worked for the Red and White Fleet at Pier 41, the Ben & Jerry's franchise, and the Booze Cruise on the uh right next to Pier 39 is Pier 41. So, Blue and Gold was at Pier 39, and Red and White at Pier 41. It's like Stanford and Cal, right?

Uh and so I worked for the Stanford uh group there, and we actually had the Hell's Angels on a boat, the Red and White fleet. I don't know if you know this, the Hell's Angels are of the Red and White.

And at that time, I was just starting to be a sound engineer. So, I was the bar manager and I knew the Chris Cobb Blues Band. That was the band. So, I was helping set up the band, helping set up the bar, and like the Oakland Hamc guy sees me and he's like, "Man, this guy's all over it. You have to come back to our clubhouse." I was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I couldn't do that." And he was like, "No, no. We need you to drive like he would not take no for an answer. Made me drive the truck and uh and it ran out of gas on the Embaradero. There's Harley's flying around and cops everywhere and I'm just standing there. He's crone underneath it. He fixes the truck on the Embaradero. We drive to the to the clubhouse and after a while he was gone and some guy looked over me and said, "Looks like you don't belong here." I said, "You're right. Bye." Got it out of there. But uh yeah, so San Francisco in the 90s, you you were 90, you know,

it was a good time. I did sound at um

Crackado and uh uh

um Kennel Club and Paradise Lounge

and uh a little bit of Warfield Shoreline

uh type, you know, uh pro stuff, you know, and I was local 16 adjacent, but I never did join the uh that's the Yatsi uh union, but you know, you have to so I did all that stuff and I always wanted be involved kind of with art and arts, but uh you know and I I had my own little band stuff and uh but I always was more about helping to produce art for other people like like Temple of Ishtar or Mansonian Institute.

So 1998 like you you your band buddies or your friends your music buddies like you were like ah let's go out to Bernie van and then that's when he got bit by the bug. I mean you had you hadn't been out to Nevada like or the that black rock before that

I was driving through on the motorcycle when I moved west. Uh we stopped in Reno one night and we were going to sleep in Idle Wild Park and some locals saw us and I my motorcycle had a big pack on it with a rifle sticking up off of it. So I with New York plates so I looked very interesting and a long hair back then too. And uh

and so they came up they're like, "Oh, don't sleep in the park. They'll arrest you. But here, smoke this pot. Here have a steak. We got some beers." They told us to go go to Trekky and so we did we we had a bunch of beers and steaks and pot and then rode to Trekky and slept the night in Trekky instead and that was nice.

But no, I hadn't really spent any time in Nevada. I think I'd been back to Reno once and it was kind of a gambling town or something.

But uh but you know, I've never had a permanent address in Reno. I've just always I didn't even live in Gerlock at first. I lived on the fly ranch the first four years I lived out here.

Yeah,

that was a a whole other thing. Let's see what other things.

So, yeah. So, uh so what's it all mean?

What does it all mean?

It all mean the impact of Burning Man, the influence on your life.

Well, you know, I like I said, I moved to Nevada and uh because I worked for Bernie man and I knew that I had a place to land and and uh and then I had a business that was modeling the way for rural economic development and uh and that helped put me through undergrad. Uh you know, And so that was the thing and you know I wouldn't have been around to do the nonprofit management work that I did before I had any degree. Uh you now I built a nonprofit that I'm working on. We have a KBRU FM Black Rockck University. I have a FCC construction permit to build a radio station in Gerlock.

Oh really?

Have that up and running 92.5 FM at Burning Man this year and uh into the future. So even whatever time this podcast ask me uh if you come out to Gerlock or if you look at kbru.org might be krufm.org I don't remember. Uh but anyways, blackrockstewwards.org is where you could find all of those ways to get to whatever is going on with me. If you want to know what's going on with me in the present and future, go there. If you want to know the stuff I've done in the past, go to metric.cc. That's the past can be found there. And now can be found now. Now, now now. So, how long is now? Now doesn't take up any space, right? It just defines the difference, the past and the future. But the past isn't real because it's already happened. And the future isn't real because it hasn't happened yet. So, what is time? There is no time. It's all just an illusion. Beautiful. Wow. Okay. Um, any final words? Anything else? Uh,

final words.

Words with wisdom.

I I think I I mentioned all of the things that uh yeah, you know, uh I think that Bernie man uh is uh you know, it's interesting because when when you're inside and when you're close to Bernie man, there can be this kind of cultish aspect to it

and and and there's a lot of that.

Uh it it's part of what uh made me step back from it a little bit. Like when I said, "What do you mean man crew elitist?" I had no idea. But you know, and and part of that is is that whenever I worked for Bernie man, I was out here in Nevada. I wasn't walking around going to the bars with my Doc Martens and and you know, being cool in front of a whole bunch of people with Burning Man. I mean, I guess I have a bit of it now. I have a patch jacket that I wear says Man Crew on the back and and all that stuff. But I'm here to tell you, most people in the world do not know about Bernie man. And so for us where it's this all-encompassing thing, it seems like it's, you know, the alpha omega, the past, the the future, and the now.

Uh, but, you know, for a lot of people, it's it's barely a mention on Malcolm in the middle. And I think I heard something about it, uh, you know, on a Simpsons episode. Yeah. And that's about it. And so, uh,

it I think that Bernie man is a positive influence on, uh, the the people who had the experience. It's easy to uh to get the wrong thing. You know that sure there's the influencers and the sparkle ponies and all that stuff, but but at the end of the day, Bernie man is is is more reflects what you put into it back at you. And so I tell people who've never gone before, uh and even people who have gone and become jaded, well, it's then you're going to get jaded back if that's what you're bringing there. Do something else. I I haven't done the one same thing the whole 25 28 years of Bernie man.

That's right.

I I've done something else. I found a new way to contribute and to be involved. And I think that's what it takes in any endeavor, certainly at Bernie man.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean the thing that always kind of keeps me coming back and I think you kind of hit upon it like here and there is just like uh community and like connections, you know, like a like like there's a it tenerant kind of people like traveling you know it's like oh they spend you know this season in in Northern California like shaping bud you know or you know they might work on like be caries working on like circuses here or there you know but uh I don't know I mean it just seems like there's like a definitely like a a Bernie man's community of people as I always say it's like a uh not quite a home for homeless but like maybe a home for people who come from like broken homes or something.

It's kind of nice. It's very welcoming, you know. Uh

yeah,

people, you know, we we live in an increasingly uh kind of strident closed society. I mean, supposedly we were we were on this progressive swing and you know, and maybe that's still going on and that and that it's just a whiplash effect from uh from that. And so there still needs to be kind of a place where people and come together uh uh to say that you know that you're okay. Uh I mean people who are non-conforming whether social, gender, whatever it is, you know, they're you're all okay. It's it's okay.

Yeah.

And uh and uh and Bernie man is definitely a place a place that does that where you can just kind of be yourself. I I remember I'm not gonna name names, but I remember seeing somebody at Burning Man and it was just out on the play by Disorient off the edge of the world or something and it was somebody that I wouldn't have expected and he was wearing uh a a a big bearded, you know, fairly stocky man wearing a a a very nice sundress with with a a bonnet and a a parasol. Okay.

And walking along and I saw that he saw me and recognized him and he had like this momentary thrill of like was I going to call him out? on, you know, him wearing his wonderful dress and whatever and, you know, and I just smiled and I could see him relax and uh, you know, and that's that's what uh Bernie man is for to some degree is it's like, you know, you can be you're you and and and that's beautiful and you can be recognized for the beauty that is you at Burning Man, uh, where you can't necessarily be recognized for it elsewhere.

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it's also it's it's a place It's like you can have the freedom, you know, to just express yourself and it's like yeah, it's go go crazy like paint your body, wear whatever you want, you know, I mean,

yeah,

I got my thing now is I've made the uh air cannon. So, it's a potato gun.

I saw that like social media.

It's a So, it's a And I've made it looks It's a big green. So, I painted it Ryobi green and put a Ryobi decal on it. So, it looks like it's a Ryobi thing. And uh it's just test air. So, you hook it up to the compressor and uh I've had up to about 150 lbs of pressure and I've got these little uh earth stress balls that I got at Reno Earth Day where I had the stewards of Black Rockck booth and Nevada Energy was giving them away. So, they're little squishy earths and you squish them and like green comes out and then goes back in, right? And so, this is why I've been shooting out of them and it hawks them a long way. And so, I'm going to set them up at I don't know why I'm going to do it with a Bernie man because I go a pretty long way. But what I want to do is target basically mortar ballistics, you know, think Olympic cornhole at like a quarter mile because this thing goes pretty far. And uh so we're going to test them out over Memorial Day and Fourth of July and figure out what to do. You don't have to protect the whole area. You just have to protect an area where they're coming down, right? So

that's not going to hurt someone too bad, right?

No, it won't hurt any I mean Well, and I have these other fluffy things that wouldn't hurt you even if you Well, we already tried. We shot But I shot one of these earth things at me at close range and it was just like a good stiff slap on the back. It wasn't that bad,

but they go flying.

Yeah, they're very good.

All right. Um, so if anyone wants to reach you, how would they go about that? Or what do you even want?

I'm still on Facebook, of course. You know, uh they could reach out through uh Stewards of the Black Rock Desert. I am the uh treasurer on the board

and uh as I said, I'm uh developing I do a Guru Road restoration project. Guru Road is a art installation that was built 1978 to 1995 just outside of Gerlock. It predates Burning Man. And Dwayne Dubbie Williams, it's also called Dubbie Lane sometimes. He used to walk along there and smoke a joint while walking his dogs. And he started carving little witicisms and sayings into rocks. Uh uh mirroring petroglyphs that he had seen from

Pyutes.

It's called Guru Road or Dubbie Lane.

There's a a book out there, Doobie Lane by Peter Goen that talks about the road and has a bunch of pictures. Gary Snyder, the beat the Pulitzer Prizewinning beat poet discovered it in the '9s with his wife when he was traveling through the region and uh wrote about it and talks to Peter Goen about it in that book. And uh and when I first moved out here in 2001 when I was the ranch manager. I started a restoration effort that lasted about four years. Then uh with uh Dwayne Williams II, the son of Dubbie who had died in '95. And so we did about four years. There were some rock slides that took out big portions of the road. Uh and then Friends of Black Rockck when I was with them and even after I left, they were also doing some uh uh restoration work along the road. And then more recently there was more vandalism and more impacts there. And so uh I talked to uh Rean Williams, the grandson now. Now Dwayne II died uh a year ago this past March. And uh and so now Stewards of Black Rockck has a contract for a two-year restoration effort out there. Through all of this, I've learned about all of the different installations and can explain and give interpretation on the road. And I'm probably going to well a part of the plan we're doing a tourism grant with travel Nevada executed by friends of black rockck so we're all partners together and I'm going to put in an interpretive sign that explains the whole thing near the front that's got to wait till next year I'm going to put together a series of videos that explain each art insulation

as well as physically fixing the art insulations a lot of it is pulling uh weeds plants that have grown to obscure rocks Uh in some places uh there was some vandalism. We've already addressed a lot of that. Sometimes it's just cows. Cows go and rub up against things and knock them over. Uh and and it's the weather is harsh and everything else. But so we're we're trying to get it back closer to what it was when each of the installations was first made. At least so that you can get the gist of uh installations. They all have a different kind of a message. Uh for example, ground zero is the first thing you see. Uh Dwayne Williams was a a US Marine at Nagasaki and he saw the impact of the nuclear bomb blast there and so he built ground zero and it looks like concentric circles like a bomb blast and carved in a rock in the middle. It says ground zero and it's a bunch of white rock in the middle and then red rock and then circumferences going out. It says 10 miles, 20 m, 30 m and a rock is carved in it. It says the alternative to negotiation and these other and the idea was that this was his anti-war commentary essentially. Uh and and so other things are just carvings in rocks that says uh and some are series of rocks that tell a short little uh witicism. Uh but uh yeah and so I give tours out there and I'm doing uh restoration work out there.

Where is that again? Just mile marker 2, Route 34. on your way to Burning Man. You'll see it off to the left there. You can drive through in a regular car, but it is a dirt road there. And when it rains, sometimes there's uh there's uh muddy puddles that you might be able to get stuck in, but maybe we'll address those. We'll check that out.

All right. Well, I think we're coming up on the time. Thank you so much. This has been a wonderful, wonderful interview. I'm sure everyone

Thank you, Andy.

Yeah. Yeah. 

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