EP 62 Christine Nash

Episode 62 with Christine Nash is out now! Meet Christine Nash, a long-time veteran of Burning Man who shares her extensive history with the event’s creative community. Nash recounts her evolution from an attendee in 1996 to her current roles co-owning art complexes in Los Angeles and volunteering with Media Mecca, where she bridges the gap between journalists and artists. The conversation explores how the event serves as a transformative catalyst for self-sufficiency and artistic growth, highlighting the shift from massive spectacles to the intimate performance art and "serendipitous" encounters that define the desert experience. Her story documents the enduring social network and "year-round involvement" that sustains the burner culture far beyond the temporary city.

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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, the Jedi Master. No, it's that Andy. Today our guest is Christine Nash. Welcome. Hello. Hello.

Yeah. So, yeah. So, this was going to come out in May 4th, so I guess you know May the 4th would be with you.

Very cool.

Whatever.

So, Chrissy, so you're we were just um talking before like uh I guess your first year was 96. That was my first year.

I don't know like as I was describing it like you felt like Dante's Inferno. I was like what what kind of hellish place have they come to?

Well, I I was kind of lucky because I already knew a lot of the artists who were at Burning Man. I had a ticket for 95 and I broke down on the way. So I got

having to turn around. But 96 I was already friends with Christian Risto and some of the people who were putting on Helco. He had the subject Big Claw. Brilliant, brilliant artist. And um so I and I already kind of knew some of the artists. So I I had a little preview of what I was in store for them. that year. Um, and I had friends who were performing at Pepe's Opera. And so it was it was yes, new to me, but so many of my friends had already been going that I was just kind of like, "Oh, yeah. I've heard about this. I'm excited to see it in action." So, or had built it in LA, so I had seen parts of things, and then it's like, "You're going to ship this out to the desert?" Okay. And so, I had an a a slightly different perspective um that I saw incomplete dreams and visions of crazy stuff they were going to do. And then when I saw it and I knew the people doing it and they they were still my friends and these same wonderful artists, but it's like

element doing what they wanted to do and I didn't have a context of the environment that it was going to be in. So it was a really cool

uh set of rosecolored glasses. Like I was excited to go to Burning Man, but suddenly it's like oh you can really do this. What What else can we do as soon as we get back to get ready either for next year or to do this on our own out in the desert? And a lot of these people were in um one of the oldest villages at Burning Man is Giggsville.

Uhhuh. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Which we've been a part of since the inception. So for a lot of the people in Gigsville who went out, we tended to do a lot of desert trips on our own at least two or three a year. So suddenly we were building effiges and then instead of waiting for Burning Man, it's like wow. Well, next year let's do this at Flip Side first because another all the Austin wanted to they would test out stuff at Flipside and then build it either in LA or there. So, I've had this year round vision of artists and it's served me until now where I co-own two art complexes in LA. One is a fine art, one is a fabrication complex. So, we kind of year round have

parts of sculptures that then go out and then they come back and they get completely mutated into something else and then it's either used for like Art Basil or a different art event or a burner event and they just these same pieces keep changing. Um the wonderful artist Sarah Firefly did the great gig the the great gigante which has now had I think three burns and there's new things added. It's a giant sculpture. I wish this was on video I could show you. it's out in our in our park,

right?

But every year there's something new to add to it. So, and then someone will walk by and say, "Oh, I I have extra drums and symbols that should be in there." And she had already figured out how to make noise out of the sculpture. So, um, back from 96, I've now I took like two different years off and I took last year off. So, I'll be back this year, uh, working with Media Mecca, which I've been doing for over a decade. So, And that's that's an easy department at Bernie man for me because again going back to 96 where I saw it and then I wanted to be a part of it but because of the nature of my job and knowing a lot of the artists it's really gratifying to be able to integrate what's happening out there with the journalists who go out and they're paid to do a story.

But my favorite thing to do is either pre or during the event sitting down with them having a shot of whiskey and like what What are you stoked about? What do you want to write about? I know you're supposed to write about city planning and the trash removal in a city. That's their maybe their story they have to do. And then someone will say, "Oh my god, I've always had a fascination with religion, with Burning Man." And suddenly that one year it was like, "Oh, do you want to talk to the whole crew who made Church Trap or The Temple Crew?" And suddenly they're they're able to do a story about what they did. And it's obviously much better because their passion's in it.

Oh wow. So I mean I guess journalists like coming to Burning Man I mean are a lot of them kind of like like one and done or you find like some they kind of come like year after year they like oh I came last year and now want to come again and like explore a little deeper or like try a different angle?

A department's a really interesting one. So a lot of the people who work and now volunteer in media mecca were former journalists who got paid or wanted to do a project and they went out to cover something and they were so enamored with it. You the usual progression. So they'll come out for a reason. That reason might not be their passion. Then the next year they go out and they volunteer. They want to learn to weld or they want to just volunteer on a big crew or they or they volunteer for like temple guardianship and then they have this emotional experience of art and faith and all of this. Then they're like, "How can I tell more people about how life transforming this has been. So they I'd say a huge I I'll have to ask my bosses but I think a huge uh number of Media Mecca volunteers were former were current or former journalists and they wanted to be in the heart of it. They wanted to see every day what the interesting story was

and then they write their own stories and then they tell their other journalist friends like okay as long as you're talking about you know largecale art here's a tiny piece that's hidden that's going to be out by the trash fence and I want you to meet these people because they're fascinating and it becomes this I'm excited about it and not the drink the Kool-Aid kind of way but in a I'm here for a reason and I want people to understand why I keep going back because there are obviously going to be a huge vast amount of people who go to Burning Man and they're like okay that was cool I'd rather now go take a trip around the world or do something else and

they experienced it it it didn't touch them away. For some people who go out, it's going to be a very evolving. Rarely do I know anybody and I've been going over 27 years to this event and working it um every year I've worked actually um or volunteered. What I find is fascinating is a lot of people keep switching departments and then they take a year off to just observe and then they'll take a year off and they want a grant and they're doing an honorarium thing. and it's their project and maybe it didn't go so well for some and then they want to be on a crew for a really wellthoughtout theme camp and they just want to bring it back to the city. So, it's this eb and flow of people getting inspired but then going not for me that's okay. Most people who are in a creative art situation I see tend to have a a very open view of of inspiration. So, I There's a bunch of people here who who are female artists and they don't necessarily want to learn how to structural weld but they want to create their art instead of I have a handbuilt ceramicist who's wonderful here and suddenly it's like I can see it in clay but what if I made it in metal and then she did that and then it's like and what if I then covered that metal in clay in a way that it was now a mixed piece of art. So you know what I mean it's It's like you can get and and then the event itself lends itself so well cuz you have vast groups of people with different technical knowledge and then the visionaries who have no idea how to make it but they know how to inspire it to happen. And that I think is really exciting to have so many people who probably can't do a lot of this stuff on their own. They need a crew and each of those crew will then inspire for something else.

Yeah. Well, I think it's I would imagine kind of an evolution for artists too. Like because I mean you can't imagine someone going for decades and decades. You're just like, "No, no, I build the same like wooden stick man every single year and I will do the exact same thing every single year." You know, I even like like with the the Barbie death camp, whatever. I mean, it's just like I mean I mean it it's definitely evolved. I remember when I was just like like one or two guys like who are these freaks with all these Barbie dolls, you know? Now it's like a village or something like

first time you saw Barbie death camp the very first time and you're like what is happening here?

Yeah,

it's so simple but you walk by and it's like oh my gosh that I I never would have thought of that but it's brilliant. And every year it would change a little bit you know.

Oh yeah yeah yeah.

I will say there's also a lot of camps and a lot of just individual people who like to go out and their whole thing There's I I've I've been going enough that I see all of the breadth of it. I have no problem with the people who go out and have you did you ever encounter the pizza cheesecake guys?

No.

Okay. So, somewhere in like maybe 2000s like you know around 20201 there was a camp and I never knew who they were and they would specifically go out and they had a black like um a a a pull cart and it was all darkened so you couldn't see it at night. No lights on it and they would just have a front light with somebody a couple people pulling it out and they had a pizza griller and a little tiny like an easy bake oven and they made tiny little bite-size pizza and cheesecake and they they would like sneak around to like little groups of people usually in some kind of a an emotional moment out by the trash fence and they would literally go pizza cheesecake and they would whisper it and you'd have to kind of like who who is that in a crowd or whatever and you'd go around this bend and inside this darkened trailer they would hand you cold chilled cheesecake bite and a little piece of pizza and then they would disappear and and someone like that and for years they did that and their thing one year It was grilled cheese. Another year, you know, they would just feed people little morsels and then disappear. And there's other groups like the that used to be the roving lawn game camp. I forget I even forget what year, maybe 2008, something like that. They would literally play through camps. All right, everybody. Excuse me. Excuse me. Like in the middle of a dinner, and they would place the ball near something, chat for a moment, sample their food, food and just play through and that was their thing was performance art and it was absolutely brilliant. So

I think the event has evolved into so many different groups of like big camps, theme camps, then the art side of it and then you have these little tiny things that out of 30,000 people in some years aundred people would experience this little piece of performance art and they would talk about it and it would inspire somebody else to go, "Oh, next year I'm totally totally going to take over. Gigsville for years would pick two or three random portos and completely decorate it.

A disco one, one was an ode to David Hasselhoff. So, you're sitting there in the porto and there's disco lights and pictures of David Hasselhoff everywhere

and but and you'd never know it but except for the line of people waiting to use that porto. It was really funny.

So, I to anybody listening like it's the little you don't have have to do big massive giant things to get inspired at Burning Man. You can really fun little tiny things.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but I think that's the stuff that gets like a lot of the the attention and the oxygen like in, you know, people's thinking. But I Yeah. I just was struck with like how many times they just like run across like it just be like, "Oh, a father and a son duo." And they just have like this little table or push cart and they're just like out in the middle of the play and they're like, "Oh, we're just making drinks for people or whatever." You know, it could just be something. just kind of small, you know.

Do you ever encounter the roving abyss pool table?

That was another fabulous one. They had built a pallet that fit a full pool table and it was wrecked, of course, because of that. And then they had a water cooler with a solar little fridge by it. So, it actually circulated cold water and they were constantly bringing ice out, but it would only come out in the middle of the night. And they had obviously I think it was someone on on DPW they had a forklift so they would move it every night and there'd be a little tiny set of like solar lights to

way the hell out there like you had to just be trash fence walking in abyss looking at the stars and there all of a sudden but it was a motion light so as you went near it the light would light up and you could play a fully racked game of pool in the middle of nowhere

have ice cold water to sip fill your thing and then you would It just said the little sign said, "Please rerrack when you leave." And everybody did. Every time I went by, it was ready to go. And I have still have no idea who did that one, but it was brilliant, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and pool tables are like 800 lb or something, you know.

No, I think they just they had either a VR or something that they could just, you know, just lift it up and but every night it moved. I never found it in the same place twice.

That's a good one.

Yeah. Well, that's also another thing because like what could I do?

Yeah, but now it's like things are so far apart and so big. Like I rarely even have a bike. Like my Burning Man like I'm always just like kind of like wandering around on foot and I like to just kind of like, you know, have a fun adventure with like my brother or friend or whatever. But it's like you don't really get to see much, you know? I mean, it's nice if you had like a art car you can like zoom around, you know? And now I guess with everyone with all their like ebikes, you know.

Yeah. I'm hoping that I mean I think they've done a very good job. The DMV does their best to really educate the art cars that yes, this is for your camp, but you really do need to if somebody is especially way out there, let them let them jump on because even if somebody once in a week-long experience gets once one or two perfect serendipitous art car hopons for a little bit, it's really great. Giggsville for years um has had Lightbringer, which is a a gorgeous art car. silver and and shiny, but it only plays like heavy metal music just to be different. And the guy who runs it is fabulous and he is always letting people on. It's, you know, so I think

I Yes, I've heard some stories about people getting denied, getting on art cars, but all in all the I think they do a pretty good job saying, "Look, this isn't a day. It's a daily thing. You get to drive around and make people's whole week by oh my god, I'm on a giant pineapple, you know? Yeah. So, I I always encourage the art car people to like make somebody's whole burn by a great

I mean because I've hardly gotten any art cars in all these rides and all these years like I don't know they're always kind of zooming by and then like if you are out somewhere I mean I don't know very rarely would it be like oh I'm just out in the middle of nowhere and there's this

empty art car and they're just kind of standing there you know there's always people you know but

of having like a terminal So every night we start pick up. So you can wait for an art car and then they can pick up people. Um I think they've done that a couple of times, but I I was gonna that's one of the things I was going to bring up this year on our on our group group call is there is I love the little taxis the people who come out and then their whole burn is there they have just a small art car and then they taxi people around which is a really fun idea.

Um but it's like it holds like three or four people. They're little art cars.

Oh, well, because what I I remember thinking a couple years ago, it's a I don't know if you could I could do this, but uh as part of like the mo the mutant vehicle like registration, you know, as part of like the like the requirements or whatever it be like, okay, like once a day, you know, have like like we'd have a couple different routes. You say one's the green route, one's the red route, you know, and it would start it go down like this like street and then out to like the the temple and come back. So like each day you have to do one of these routes as part of your like permit.

That would probably be a good podcast is just to I don't know if you've done one yet to talk to the mutant the DMV, but they're

talk to chef.

Okay. Yeah. I don't know if they've discussed that, but it's something that it gets brought up quite a bit at least like with the journalists and stuff. We always do um a couple art tours with the journalists as well. And I think it's a really special thing. for new journalists who have never been a Burning Man, we'll get one of the bigger art cars like the Monaco, that gorgeous sailing.

So, usually at least once or twice a year, we'll do an art tour, but we'll invite the we and we'll pick the the pieces that they're going to be going around and we will invite those artists on board. So, now we have a sound system and we can interview the artists on their way and then suddenly we show up and all all of their memories of creating from inception to actually building it on the playa. Now we roll up on this beautiful sculpture piece of art and all the journalists are like, "Oh, I get it. I see the little I, you know, decoration at the top in honor of your mother who passed and the who inspired this like whatever it is." Suddenly the story has context and has emotion. And so we that's a really important thing. I I stress every year that have letting the journalists meet the artists and ahead of time and then roll up on the piece to interact. So yeah.

Yeah. But I I thought like like for the artists like you kind of I mean you definitely want them to get a cultured, right? But uh you don't want to kind of handhold them, right? You kind of want them to kind of go out and see learn it for themselves.

Oh no. Once we tag their cameras and make sure that they're legit, they're not doing a Girls Gone Wild segment. We we always I mean ahead of time I will say this. So me Mecca is very good with I get a list of maybe 20 projects every year and we will call them five months before apply three months before two months. Hey, is this your first time? And if it is their first time, it's like here's a couple tips and tricks. Like this this is going to make your life so much easier out there. If they've been out there a couple years, it's like all right, hey, I happen to know you're super into motorcycles. Hey, let me hook you up with with there's going to be a piece out there where you can ride and it's one of like you know Hudson Zoa tropes maybe or whatever the situation might be and suddenly by getting to know them we can help give them not like a a V velvet rope situation but just an update on things to look for so they can plan for it.

Um there's always a couple of really great projects that way ahead of time they'll announce usually in the Burning Man journal of like okay I remember the first time the dragon smelters were teaching people how to smelt metal and ahead of time we didn't really have a lot of you know I think there that was when tribe.net was out and you know

yeah

remember those days

oh yeah

be like okay anyone who wants to learn about metal smelting bring some of your old jewelry or bring some of you know this kind of metal so people ahead of time can be you know they walk up with their little coffee can filled with little stuff and they can melt it down and put their dog's ashes in it and make a whole paper weight or whatever it was. Suddenly, it was an off playa planning to be super stoked about doing something on Playa. So, I I always prefer the more year round involvement whenever possible.

Oh, yeah. So, how many journalists come to Bernie Manny like an average year?

Every year it it changes. I mean, some a lot of times there are a lot of projects that get pitched and then we find that we can combine them into a you know different things like if we get 400 submissions there might be 200 actual sanctioned projects and a lot of the more seasoned especially photojournalists who were taking the photos we know them we know are they with AP are they with Reuters you know we know those guys and they know not to what not to shoot and what to shoot and the rules that you always ask um luckily for a lot of them, everyone now has a very good camera in their iPhone or in their their uh Android. So suddenly it's okay if you see the most perfect photo that you weren't planning on using but you snapped it and it was the moment but oh my gosh there happens to be a woman who's slightly topless in there and we don't know her and you didn't get a release. How do you navigate that and suddenly can make sure to either find that person or or if it's the right thing yes Yes, you're going to have to blur it. Sorry, you're going to have to crop it out. And most of most of the times they understand. But the beautiful thing about having a camera with you all the time. When I first started, it wasn't no one. All my old photos are in film camera cuz we didn't have phones back then. But nowadays, you can get a a model release. If you take this gorgeous photo you weren't even planning on and you walk up to that person, oh my gosh, if you're a school teacher, I certainly don't want this out there, but it's a beautiful photo. Can I even send this to you? And a lot of our journalists are very versed in offer that photo to the person cuz they're going to probably want it and then say, "By the way, my name is so and so. Um, I work for a small paper and would you be comfortable if I publish it? If not, no big deal. Oh, sure. I have no problem with that. Can I film you giving me your release, your name, and your phone number and your email so I can make sure to send it to you. That in itself suddenly there's no there's no question. The person was stoked. They get the photo and now it's not this I can't believe you took this photo and this woman, you know.

Yeah. Well, it's kind like a video release kind of thing, right?

Yeah. So, we do the best we can to not only protect the participants because there are definitely a lot of people who are like, "No, you can't take my photo. Oh my god, delete that off your camera right now." And that's and that's totally fine. There's also people who are that convert who would just it's their they have would love a professional photo of them ten at Burning Man. So I think that's an important part of it.

Yeah. So in terms of I don't know it's probably not a solid number but uh like when taking a photo of something like like what's the distance like how far away or like how clear does someone have to be before you're kind of like well I should get their permission because if someone's like really far away it's like ah I can

identifiable. I mean, know you're going to Burning Man, there are there's people everywhere with cameras. Um, but not everybody publishes things. But now we have the internet. We have Instagram influencers who don't usually care at all what's in their background. So, we do our best to that's a new thing.

Yeah. How do you deal with that?

It's difficult. Um, I have wonderful people that I work with who are journalists who are also 20 plus year veterans uh in our department. And it's kind I I just take it on a case- by case basis. If you roll up to somebody and they're obviously um a beautiful influencer and they have the the feathers and the outfit and they I rolled up on someone last two years ago with smoke bombs and I was like, "Okay, so you can't just set off smoke bombs cuz now you're really annoying the people who are sitting on the ground over there having a little champagne breakfast. You just ruined their Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm like, and that's the learning you have to be very well aware of everyone around you. So,

well, maybe that's your play character. It's like I'm smoky, okay? Everywhere I go, it's just like I have my smoke bomb.

It was something. And I mean, they were actually cool about it. And so, I said, "Okay, so you see all of this trash that you just moved? I'll just wait cuz I want to make sure all of this is cleaned up." You know, and and you do your best to explain it to them, but there will always be a few people who are like, "Someone else can deal with that. And so here's my here's my Burning Man thing I break down to so many people because there this comes up all the time. If you have a family of 10 people in an immediate family, right? You will often times see one that's at least a creative, one that's the total conservative, one that's kind of the jerk or has problems.

Okay, add a zero. For every hundred people, there are some. For every thousand people There's going to be even more that just don't get it. Now we're at 80,000 people. There's a lot of them that really won't get it. And it's up to everybody as a community to do our best to try to steer them into maybe learning something new from out there, giving them some kindness, or calling it when they're being a jerk. Making sure they realize this isn't going to be tolerated. And I have threatened to kick, you know, kick people out of the event for doing things that were dangerous, scary, totally uncalled for. If if you're near the guys, you know, the Dr. Bronner's guys, there are no cameras. People are in there to have fun at Dr. Bronner, not to get photographed naked. It's that is not okay. And those guys are amazing at, you know, following their own rules and making sure no one everyone in there feels like they're safe and And there is, you know, I'm I'm my nickname is Mama Crunchy. I try to, you know, be as kind as I can, but there are sometimes where I will absolutely mama bear and stand up for any of the citizens who are encountering something that makes them like, uh, I don't want to be here if that's how it is, you know.

So, are these troublesome characters? I mean, would you describe like as more like like like newbies, like just first timers or or do you even see like some veteran people Like, I've been here for years and I'm still a jerk.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They're there. Because it's a creative situation. I mean, if you're going to go to any other event, every event has a has a kind of feel and a character to it. Burning Man is a lot of highly creative people who, especially those who have been who choose to keep going, nine times out of 10, they're going for their friends and for the people. The art is really important. The community is really really important, but they want to go. And there are things you can do there that you really can't do anywhere else. The regionals are brilliant. I love that there are so many regionals around, but even at Loveurn, you know, you're going to get the weirdo dudes who women are like, "Oh, don't go near that little installation. They're all creepy dudes." It's going to happen anywhere you go. That was my whole economy of size problem with people.

But I will say we've had people Like Gigsville is known for snarky old Alzheimer's. Most of us has been going over 20 years because the Gigsville is 25 years old at least.

So,

and it used to be like 400 people. Now it's maybe 200. So, it's not as big. But you walk in, we have a a car on fire in the middle of our village.

The car car

things blow up in there a lot and it's always a lot of a lot of de. So, over we figured it out one year like 80 % of Giggsville works the event sometimes for two, three months at a time. So, we all get cranky. We all are working long days, but we love it. But Wheel Gunner, who's the famous has the famous flamethrowing car, he's always coming through and the party always ends at Gigsville. Well, there are whole departments that know Gigsville and think we're kind of funny and I'll never forget. So, I'm on radio 24/7 when I'm there and I like to know what's going on and be available. Well, One year on the radio, someone on ESD, the emergency services thing, said, "Oh my gosh, we've just heard that there's a car on fire near 3G." And of course, knowing I'm standing there at the lighting of the carbecue at 3G,

and because the lighting of the carbecue is night, so all of these radios start going, "G, get head out to 3G. A car on fire. We may have an ESD emergency. not knowing that the people who called that in are some of the classic old-timers for ESD and they were waiting for the newbies to show up and freak out about there's a car on fire and this explosion and so the newbies are like freaking out freaking out. We light the carbecue. I think that year it was an Angry Birds thing where someone did a slingshot of a stuffed animal on fire and it lit the barbecue and all the ESD guys just erupt in laughter like cats. Xville and all the newbies were just freaking out and it was I'm like in another whole department they were pranking their newbies. So this a lot. So I'd say as far as like the jerk factor, yes, there's some. And then you add like, oh my gosh, they've been drinking all day and then somebody gets dosed and now they're wandering around defacing art. It in a city of 80,000 people, it's shockingly calm and also accountable. Like I saw a girl I was in my because I have a a driving pass. So I'm anytime I see somebody dehydrated, I always have supplies. I'll take them. You know, we almost anybody on staff who has a driving pass instinctively will take care of the people if they see a problem. And I saw a girl and she was sobbing and crying. I think she had been dosed. We called for, you know, for immediate medical help. and emotional help. And there are services for that out there. And the accountability of five different camps who didn't even talk to each other descended on this woman. Got her a blanket, covered her, got her warm. Like immediately there was care. There was all right, what did he look like? Let's see if we can get him. So they if a ranger comes, they can question this guy. Like and and this all happened very organically. And that's why people poo poo like, "Oh, it's all these bros there now." It's not. As as somebody who has truly seen it for a long time, I think I think Black Rock Citizens do a fantastic job overall of looking out for each other.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's like the overall like zeitgeist like Bernie B like and like you're saying like if you have a group like you go camping with 10 people or or a hundred or a thousand or or 80,000, you know, like if if something like like if the so sociopaths in like in in society is like, you know, uh 1% or half of 1% or whatever. It's like if you're with 10 people, it's like there's probably not going to be any. If you're with a hundred people, maybe one, you know, look at a thousand, it's just like, oh, now you've got 10 of them.

Yeah. And it happens. And there's a lot of people who I mean, especially with the influencer crowd. So, three years ago, I was driving home. I had been working all day. It was like I think It was Friday night, so I had a shift at Media Mecca. And then it was big burns that night. There was like three big projects that were all going up. So, it was late. It was maybe like 2:00 a.m. And I'm driving back to Gigsville on one of the big hub roads that was just rudded out. And there's two beautiful, beautiful models who were on Segways and they charged, right? So, if you know understand the city, I was at 3:00 and I think F or something. And they were at 9:00 and H. Like they were as far almost as far away as you could possibly get. And they were cold in these little outfits. They had probably done a photo shoot that day. And all I wanted to do was to go home. I just I wanted a little shot of whiskey, sit around the barbecue, and go to sleep. And to make a long story short, they were very nice. They were from like Ro mania or something. Didn't speak a lot of English. And everyone was laughing at them cuz everyone was like, "You don't even know how to fix your thing. Call your boyfriend." And they were kind of getting hazed. And I felt bad because you know what? No one deserves that. They they didn't know. I'm like, "So next time you have to check to make sure you can take care of yourself and that your segue is charged." Well, he was supposed to do it. And it's like, "No, no, no. You're not hearing it's your responsibility to be self-sufficient. So, of course, I I was like, "Well, can you lift your Segways into my truck?" They couldn't. So, I asked some passers by and it took a little bit to get people to take some pity on these girls. Then, we got them in the truck. We're driving and the whole time I'm talking to the to the girls in the car and they were just so shell shocked, but they were pretty sober. And it's like I I gave them my spiel and they were like, "Oh my god, how long have you been doing this? blah blah blah. So, we get there and they were genuinely grateful for it. And I quizzed him at the end. I'm like, "So, what are you never going to do again ever? I will never leave camp without having my water." And they didn't have water without without my stuff. Will you all Are you going to check your Segway or you going to leave it up to some some dude who's been drinking, you know, shots all day? I will do it. Okay. Do you know how to charge your Segway? Yes. Okay. Okay. All right. You're going to be all right. And and I I drove away like to these people. But then I'm like, you know what? She probably had a really good night. And now maybe and and she even said

or you you turned it from being a horrible night, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. And well, not even that. I'm sure she had a good day, but like she was really getting hazed, especially that that tall girl. And the cool thing is she hinted after and it took like 10 minutes of driving and she I'm like, "What do you really like?" And she goes, "Well, I crochet. And I said, "Oh my gosh, you should totally go down to the Black Rock um roller disco. There's a girl there who I had met years earlier who did these beautiful macra things." And she was like, "Really?" I go, "I don't know. This is years ago. I don't know if she's still there, but it gives you a reason to go maybe roller skate around, meet that other camp, and get out of your plug-and-play camp." And and so I had like a nugget, a little tiny bit of something that she might And I said, "So next year if you come maybe throughout the year, crochet a bunch of little of your favorite thing and hand them out to people that you made that and they'll love it. And she was like, "Oh, I I never thought of that." And so these are the opportunities that I encourage to everybody who's starting to feel a little apathetic about if they want to go or not, you know.

Well, also the thing that people have to have a little patience and remember is that we We all were there, right? I mean, there was a certain point in time like every single one of us was going for the first time and it's like I might not have like an Instagram account with like like thousands of followers, you know, but like I was I mean in 96 I went with my brother like we just had a photocopied survival guide like we didn't even we we read the directions how to get there like

like we didn't even have a compass when we were like uh

and Rave Camp was not the sound camps weren't at Burning Man. You had to go that way.

Yeah.

And a half and to the right and you would see the pylons of the speakers.

Yeah. And there were just cars zooming around all over the place like

but I mean we made so many rookie mistakes where it's like uh I remember like we were like oh let's go to the rave camp and it had just like one of those like dinky little like you know like 12 ounce bottles of water and I was like I've got water you know and then I was like well have to go to the bathroom. They're like, "There'll be portaotties at the rave camp." Like, "You sure?" Yeah. Like,

yeah.

No, no, they were. So, I had a many hour odyssey. I'm like, I really have to go to the bathroom and I really need some water.

And then even like leaving like I mean cuz you know I'm used to camping

and you know it's like and we we brought a bunch of wood you know and someone's like what do you do when you go camping in the woods? Like you dig a hole,

you make a camp, right? You like a fire and then when you leave what do you do? You kick the dirt on top of it as a responsible camper. And yeah, the whole

Well, wait. Um, had you ever have you done any big theme camps or big

So, in 97 it was like our first year we did uh uh was called the cult of distraction.

I love it.

Yeah. Our friend like because we were coming up we're trying to come up with names and then my friend was like you two guys you guys with the cult of distraction like perfect you know and so it's like a cood o with like fins off of it so it's almost kind of like the Jesus fish and people like Jesus we're like

yeah know

oh that's so great I love it

yeah so sometimes I go around tell people just like oh yeah I'm you know I'm a failed cult leader

you know they're like like what happened it's like well it's a cult of distraction it's like what happened it's just like yeah everybody went and did their own thing you know

I love that it's so

so we I think last year for that was 2006. I mean I also when I moved to Hawaii in 2002 I became the I I started the the regional here and then

well it used to be

there's not much really happening any anymore but Hawaii is just like it's a really hard hard place you know

expensive who does um the flame effects he's the main guy who make sure all of the sculptures are safe that breathe fire. Um, amongst many other things he does. Um, but Dave did years ago a flame effect workshop in Hawaii.

I actually was the one who organized it.

I was there with Slinky from Flaming Lotus Girls.

Oh, really?

You were there?

Well, it's funny because like I organized it, but I didn't actually get to take the class.

Oh my gosh. Both Slinky and I were there. It was a blast.

Oh, wow. worked with so many large scale sculptures that breathe fire and I had never ever done one myself. So we did this giant tiki thing out of junk and it was great. But thank you so much for that. That was

Yeah.

Yeah. Cuz like the the ammo can because I remember Dave X was like, "Oh, we need like a metal box." And I was like, "Well, I have this ammo can." And it's like, "Oh, perfect.

I love it." Oh my god. Can you do another one, please? That was really, really great. I so enjoyed that.

Well, it's funny because uh Clem or um

he came out for that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, he's now our the well I think our one last on island regional contact.

Cool. Okay.

Uh I mean I guess there's Trey in Maui, but he's I guess he's still the regional contact for Maui, but I think he lives in the mainland now.

Okay.

Um

dude, I it's I highly recommend whatever what you did with that was amazing. That was really a special

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I should talk to

I see the gears going on your brain. I think it's

Yeah. Well, it's been gears. I kind of resigned from doing that like in 2012 or something, you know, but uh

to get to get reinvigorated. Are you going to come to the play this year?

Well, this year my son actually just graduated from high school, so

congratulations.

Yeah. So, we're going to be dropping him off at school. And as I I'm sure my listeners probably know the story.

Like I went to my wife and I was like, "So, after we drop him off at school and we're flying back, like, mind if I just kind of like, you know, split off and go to Burning Man, you know?" And she was just like, "Not if you want to have a home to come back to, you know."

Oh, got it. Okay. Has she ever gone?

No. No. No. It's not It's She doesn't like noise. Like, we live out in the country. If there's a dog barking two miles away, she's like, "God, I hate that."

You know, and also if it's hot, there has to be like water. And she gets kind of claustrophobic in like large crowds of people and stuff. So,

I I have wonderful friends who are like, I love the idea of it, but I'd hate it. And and they know not to go. I am going to go out to Fourth of Julio, which I haven't gone out in probably 15 years.

I've always wanted to do that. Yeah,

it's really I love the honestly I love the weather because it's so much more mild and are gorgeous and I think it's going to be a good moon phase. time around the 4th of July.

So, I haven't in at least a decade. And my housemate who used to work DPW years ago had a serious accident out there and she hasn't been back and she doesn't like the big event. She's also not great in crowds and she's like, you know, I think I'm ready to go back out. And we have two Salukis who are desert dogs. They're racing dogs

and we go out to dry lake beds all over because we're blessed to have Cuddyback Lake Bed and near Fort when there's a great one out there. So, we tend to do dry lake bed camping. Giggsville has done a May trip for years. And now I think we're going to go out, take the dogs. Uh I have a little scamp. We're just going to go out and have fun. And they're not good with fireworks. So, we've told everybody once we get out there, we'll set a GPS coordinate so people can find us. And then we're probably just going to be away. Like, no fireworks, no gun. you know, none of that. No big bangs, but if anyone wants to camp out there, we will. So,

it's been a long time.

Yeah. So, anyway, when I was talking about my our camp, the cult of distraction. So, um we've been

Yeah. Well, we've been talking about like for years, you know, cuz I took 13 years off of Burning Man, my brother took like 14 years off, and we've been like all these years plotting like plotting our return, plotting our So, we've had this dream for many, many, many years. to get this like doughut machine.

Okay.

And we finally finally just got it right.

Yeah.

I love this.

Yeah. So, we're actually going to be going to uh to Unscrews.

Unscrews.

The Santa Cruz regional. So,

heard of that one. Cool.

Yeah.

I knew they had one. Unscrews.

Yeah. So, this is coming out May 4th. So, this will be coming out right after Unscrews ends. I think it's like the 28th to the 2nd or third or something like that like Yeah.

So, yeah, it's got to be our dry run with like giving out donuts.

Okay. Are No. So, of course, I have to ask, what's your plan for the Are you Is it going to be on a card? Is it going to be mobile? Is it

That's kind of hard with all the boiling oil.

I don't know. I hear you. But like, okay. So, you'll have your own little like a little a little stand.

Well, basically, it's going to be at our camp. And I think we're we're still trying to figure figure out like the logistics and just like of how many cuz it's like there's six lanes and we make like these mini donuts and like and we get this like 50 lb bag of mix and my brother actually this weekend is doing all the experiments to see like he's like how many donuts can we make and how much does it cost like

uh so I think our idea would be to like like once in the morning like one hour every morning

you know cuz I mean we also had some friends years ago that did uh this giant ketchup bottle and so they were giving out fries and I wasn't quite 247, but

fairly close. And I remember the telling me about there like it it was a lot of work. I mean, they had this assembly line like

like a truck full of like potatoes and someone with the machine like like

slicing the them into like and then someone frying them and then somebody like putting them in a bag and like it was hot.

It's a lot of stuff to deal with and take back with you too.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. You people would freak out. Well, the French Quarter has like Beignet day and they're doing bignets. I think one of the most effective because you can get really tired if you're going to be of service to your community members and do something like that. You don't want to burn yourself out. And I think the best use of that as a safety is there was years ago next to Giggs Villa Camp that did surprise grilled cheese and they had they had this foam rubber giant grilled cheese sandwich and they put an air horn in the mouth of it. So they had big googly eyes so it looked like a a talking sandwich. And basically randomly, and I mean randomly, the air horn would go off and there was a big digital timer of of like 10 minutes. And so for 10 minutes, the griddle was hot and you could run up and get a grilled cheese sandwich, but only during that 10 minutes. And they do it whenever they felt like it. So some only once was it annoying in the middle of the night and it was like 20 minutes at 2:00 a.m. and people would just start rushing because they knew that sound was go get your grilled cheese. So, there is a way that you can make it fun and short short short time.

Yeah. I mean, it's also it's not going to be the only thing that we're going to do it or can't be, you know, but yeah, we figured it would just I mean, it depends upon the logistics of it all because

donuts. They will want donuts.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it was funny cuz we were like Like we're trying to figure out like how many we can give out and we're like well okay it'll probably be like 600 bags of like four mini donuts like each you know maybe that's within 1 hour. It's like yeah what about like all the other people who show up and and like uh you know might be a little bit of a riot and so it's like okay our business is like we're going to start a riot once a day every day.

Donut riot. Oh my I love this.

Yeah. So then we were like okay like as we're like cooking the donuts and one can smell it, you know? It's like go over the BMIR and like and give them some donuts and just be like, "Hey, can you put out an announcement?" Donuts, donuts.

That's so brilliant. That's like it I love the randomness of timing, but if if you had like BMIR involved because, you know, a lot of art cars also tune into BMIR

or camps do. So suddenly all throughout the city it's like donuts.

Yeah. Uh yeah, and we might have to have the flexibility to be like it was like, okay, it's one hour every morning, but like

Yeah.

You know, if like 3,000 people line up, I be like, might need to extend it another hour or something.

Well, you know what you could do? There's a bunch of camps that do like in French Quarter, there's the the crepe thing. There's a couple of I think the tuna guys aren't doing their thing this year, but there's a couple of camps that do that and and they're all online. You can be like, "All right, realistically, how many people did you have coming up?" Because if they're like, "Oh, gez, if you're doing donuts, 200 people will show up there." You might There's got to be a way to mitigate like first come, first serve, you know?

Well, that's basically, right? It's like tough s***. Like after it's done, it's done, you know?

Like bacon and donuts, things that smell really good

people coming. So,

oh yeah. No, we were funny. because we're looking at this like mascot costume of this this like pink sparkly donut and we're like we need to find our like most sirly and hung over like person in our camp like every morning and we'll give them a bullhorn in this outfit like

I have an idea that might help and I have no idea. This is just spitballing but so center camp has evolved a lot.

That's where we think it would be actually. Yeah.

And I've I've been it just hit me that I I'm happy to kind of I don't know who's doing the camp this year, but center camp could do a lot of people have asked about like where's a good what's a how can I do a popup even if it's one a day. So if they had a section where they used to sell the coffee and all of that and just said had a schedule. So in one day yes you got to commit to a 5h hour block of time but you're making donuts and the next day someone will do their cheesecake someone will do but that may be an interesting I I have no idea if they would even be interested. if there's insurance or liability stuff, but if if you have your little license, cuz if you're feeding people, there is a a procedure for that. But to do a popup once a day there. So, let's say from 11:00, like the noon into 3, there was a popup of someone who hand makes food and wants to give it out. That might be a kind of cool thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's structured there. They have lines, you know, there's places for people to eat. Um, you can crash mitigation and stuff like that. But I'm happy to I might follow up with you on that. I'm happy to see if there's any interest in that.

Sure. Well,

opportunity for a lot of people to do something like that.

Yeah. Well, two things like well um first of all like our idea I mean this is not going to be this year but like next year like 27 anyway. Um but we're actually thinking we'd like to actually camp like in center camp you know so like to be like you know.

Wow.

And then the other thing is that I've kind of been working with the center camp pavilion. uh people with the last couple of years cuz well because I started when I first went back in 24 I um oh yeah I made this uh well cuz I'm a you know I'm a alumni like regional contact right and I was coming back and I was like I want to meet I want to get together with some of my other alumni you know like well where do you do that it's like let's have an alumni reunion right so I made this like little logo you know like a

I love that

so I made the like t-shirts. He's graduated to I was like, "Come on." And and then so then I like I mean a few of us got together. So that's why I kind of did that and sent Camp Pavilion and then uh I don't know. It's funny cuz like this graduated t-shirt like uh like more and more people were just like, "Where did you get that?" Like

Oh yeah,

I knew that.

There's I I'm a huge fan of the homemade merch and art. Like some of I usually get gifted um I I started to do a Christmas tree where all the ornaments were pendants people had given me over the years.

And there's such beautiful art that people are just making and handing out and giving out.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

There's a And the funny thing is so I ran Mutator for the entire run. We started it and there was um one year we did these little tiny Mutator pendants and it was the six-fingered hand with the Burning Man symbol in the middle and they were very rustic. They look like old pewtor. They're really hard to find. They're very rare. And every year, every year that I've been going, so over 27 years, someone will come up to me with the that pendant and be like, "Oh my god, this band changed my life." And it's so funny because they have it. And then I always I still have a stash of like five or six of them. So every year I keep one in my like next to my radio.

Mh. without fail. Every year there's somebody who lost theirs or they lost it in a divorce and their husband took it or whatever or their wife and I can gift it to someone and I'm so tempted to do another run of them and just not say that they're new, but like it would be really fun to just be like here's an alumni you know of this and there's and I have so many friends who do there's a wonderful journalist who does this little hologram dependence every year and she's done them for years and every year she does a different one. The year that um Ruth Bader Ginsburgg died, she did the Burning Man with the the Supreme Court cloak on it and it you hold it up to the light and it flashes an image onto the ground and there and every year she just gives them away and she's so lovely. So,

wow, that's incredible.

Alien sex camp their Fimo ones for years they would do a FIMO tube. I have a bunch of years of those. Like, it's really fun to just see all of the creativity with that. And it's not to make money, you know?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that like we're saying is before art doesn't have to be large scale thing where you make it some giant robot or something, you know? I mean,

oh, I have one of our our wonderful build guys who's just a genius, Dennis at Media Mecca. Every year he would he would pick like I don't know 50 people that however the num the number was. But his gifts were always very practical and he would observe for like a week and they'd be like, you know, you've asked me for that pocketk knife three times. Here's a multi-tool, you know, and he would gift very specific, very needed gifts to people, which I always appreciate.

It just reminds me, I don't know, it's probably going down in the annals of like, you know, uh, like fun stoner ideas, but like horrible in practice, you know, and we're like kind of hanging out like the the remainder of the year like what are we going to build for next year for Burning Man? And I remember thinking the whole like gift idea like yeah, we're going to gift people stuff like Yeah. Yeah. but like how can we do it more efficiently? We're like I know gift rockets so it'll be like a model rocket and then it goes up and then at the apogee it blows apart and then and then out of it will come you know it's like well what do people need? You know it's like it could be like little joints like or or like pocket knives raining from the sky,

tampons, like whatever. And we're like after a while we're like, well, not only would some of those things be dangerous, you know, it's just like essentially what you're talking is a moop rocket, right?

It's true. I think one of my one of my favorite things like that is how many random esoteric items we have to find each year. And I I got a weird reputation. where if someone couldn't find something, they would ask me. They would radio to me back, "Is Crunchy there?" "Uh, yeah, we need" and the weirdest one one year was somebody on heat who was a wonderful friend of mine wore disposable contacts and he forgot the box like of his extra contacts and he lost one of them and it was like a negative 3.25 whatever it was contact a disposable contact and I Kid you not, it took me like three days, but I found somebody at a camp that wore disposable contacts and they had the same prescription and I was able to get a single contact form. So, like there's it's it's those things like what are the things that you always forget about? And I did so long ago a Burning Man packing list that Plaid from um many different groups and from Gigsville took it and she completely made it into like a searchable database and all of this and it got went up on Reddit and it was so old like the resources page for LA not a single store or resource is still in operation. So I was like okay I'm going to send out a word document change it make it new update it and then I just kind of let it go and to this day a w woman came up to me like eight years ago and said your list saved my life I bought absolutely everything on it. And I was like, "Oh my god, please tell me you didn't. This is not the whole purpose of it." She said, "It was $8,240 worth of stuff." And it it's like, "Oh my god, this is not the whole purpose of that." But good to know that that's about what I take to Burning Man with me. It was really funny. Like, who would have expected that? But I highly recommend. There's some wonderful packing lists out there of all the things that you might not think to bring, but man, are they Awesome. Well, and okay, so last couple years has been raining. I've been going a long time. I've never had three solid days of rain where I had to sit in my, you know, my little trailer I brought and a lot of my neighbors cuz they couldn't refill the Johnny on the spot guys couldn't take the portos down. They were all overflowing. It was horrible. And I always have a little lugabaloo with me. So guess what? Suddenly I became the hot in Gigsville because I actually had a clean simple thing. Okay. And I'm like, you got to bag it, triple bag it, and you got to take it home. But suddenly it was a lot more easy to deal with. So, like I tell, don't rely on anybody or anything and you'll be fine.

Yeah. Well, like like we said before, it's like we all kind of start there in the beginning and then like over time like if if it's something that you know you're going to keep coming back and doing, it's like you you you learn, you know. So anyway, um so getting back to So where is So were you always from LA? Like is that where you were born or where's your

and I I love Chicago dearly, but I was never into the the weather gets so bad. So I went to school at ASU, which was ridiculously hot, and I didn't like that, but I like dry heat. But that's where I'd always wanted to be in the music industry. So um I did a million things and ended up getting a job for CBS record. records that brought me to LA and that was 91 and I got to work some amazing bands which was a blast and then I went to Virgin Records and then for 16 years I was at Warner Brothers Records and then right about that time Mutator was doing really great and we needed a new rehearsal spot. So then we took over this abandoned paint factory downtown Los Angeles with several partners and Big Art Labs was born and so when I retired from the music industry I was enjoying the art side of it. So, for the last 15 years, I've been running and the co-owner of Big Art Labs. And then a couple years ago, there's a a subset of art that you just can't do at a place like Big Art, which is fine art. So, if you have welding and patas and sawdust everywhere and set designers, you can't have oil painters because there's just too much of a particulate in the air. So, one of my tenants um found a smaller building. So, I have a second building that is no fabrication. It's the opposite. So, it's painters and photographers and it's a clean building. So, um that's called the mine art space downtown.

I have people at Big Art and about 30 over there.

Do you know my my friend um who's one of the earlier like uh LA regionals, Twan?

Oh, yeah. I totally know Twan. He's

Yeah, he's actually coming out here in a couple of weeks. We're gonna like hang out.

But um Yeah. No, because we were talking about like different uh like documentaries and stuff and so he turned me on to and I'd never known like until I watched this um what was it called? Desolation Station.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Cuz when you were talking about like

those shows Yeah. where like started and Yeah. All of those old old music shows. Oh, you mean the desert one?

Yeah. That's

that's where Gigsville kind of started. And a lot of those guys were also Cacophony Society.

Yeah. Exactly. Look Cuz when you were talking about like you going down to LA like before you even went to Burning Man like you were friends or whatever like that was that was the thing that was in my head was like oh yeah like were you involved with Desolation Station or any of those

that my scene I I attended but I wasn't really active at that time. I was a young 20ome year old and but it was fun and also I was in the music industry so that was always exciting to be like oh the guys from James Addiction are way out here and yeah and it was fun and but a lot of those guys then were in cacophony society and Gigsville and Cacophony were around the same time in LA and then started and there was a band called Insecto that a lot of the people played at at those parties. So one of the famous ones for that we used to do weird cacophony society stuff like one year at the Oscars when Ilia Kazan there was a big controversy so all these protesters were there and we thought it would be really funny and Burning Man style to dress up in suits and have our our pro test was more male full frontal nudity equality among the sexes. Like why can women get seen but not men? And we had signs up and we did all of that. And right around that time there are steam tunnels underneath Pasadena City College and someone in Cacophony Society knew a janitor or something and had access to the steam tunnels underneath the college and so they went to to mutate her to do a drum off crazy. techno party underneath the college and that was one of the early big cacophony mutator gigsville that whole world in LA that was probably like 1991 so yeah

good time

I mean uh what about nowadays well I'm sure everyone's all like you said like back then we were all there twice and now it's like

but I mean we're still having fun

yeah well and I mean big art is so big a lot of The early Bernie man groups were housed here. Like we're non-residential. We're work only. But like Dab was here. Well, now they do Lightning in a Bottle in Coachella. And they all bought houses up in Grass Valley. Uh Space Island was downtown, which they had the Java barge and a bunch of big art cars. And Stephano Noll, who's a brilliant artist, he does stuff for Coachella and on Lightning in a bottle and all the big builds. He's got a huge metal shop here. And he still is working on large scale sculpture. Um, we did a the Black Burner project for two years, was started here at our one of our warehouses and then

Oh, really?

like shipped out early like maybe June to Reno. I think they went to the generator to finish and now they're this year I think they're doing their project to the generator. But we we have enough room to do a lot of these. A bunch of art cars were all built and designed here. We had for one year we had like six art cars and there was just every night it was dubstep and you know there was Charlie the Unicorn and the Dirty Beatles and the Java Barge and the Space Wench and there was like two more that were all done here and then they all left in this bizarre caravan from LA to like

to Burning Man. So, it's really fun. Like our summers here are usually really weird but I don't know how to say this. It's wonderful. We're almost full with year- round tenants right now. So, we don't have a lot of build space. So, I'm kind of worried. We'd had a couple uh Vanessa and Derek who are just brilliant artists. They did, if anyone remembers at Coachella, the hippos, which is so brilliant. This fourstory, everybody's in a hippo mask and they're doing all of this performance art. They're going to do a big project and I think we're going to try to house them here to build it. So, I I don't know the details, but I'm very they whatever they do is going to be absolutely brilliant. So, I'm very excited to see what they have in store. Yeah.

Cool. Well, I guess this brings us to our last question. Uh, so what has been the the impact and influence of Burning Man on your life?

I think because I now live I I've for years I've lived it year round, but the impact of Burning Man has been I found my people. I found my friends, my my my lifelong friends, and I found a community that I believe in. You know, we falter. Everybody fails. Everybody messes up at times. But when one of us falls, there's at least a group of people who are like, "All right, you messed up. Let's let's move forward." And and and now that a lot of them aren't even in LA, the impact of Burning Man to me is I now run to art complexes and a lot of the same people that I invite to my home for dinner parties and stuff, I see here, I their work and then I can spread that around and then suddenly year round if I'm traveling almost to any city in this country I can I mean I was I was if I'm in Chicago obviously I have family but like oh Sloan and all of the old the Chicago burners are there if I go to do New York my dearest friend Tiger who I used to work with who passed of cancer you know she used to do the IDID rod with everybody and so I'd fly back back there. So, like my vacations are hanging out with people that I either work with at Burning Man or know because I want to see them and I love these people.

Oh, yeah. So,

yeah,

one of the my little play gifts I was like giving out the last couple years. I made these like stickers. So,

let's see. Well, I'll show you this first one.

Oh.

Oh, there we go. Oh, I love

it's I have friends everywhere. I mean, it was from Andor, you know, that was like their kind of like the rebel thing with like there no you It was just I have friends. But I was like I was like that that totally fits Burning Man. Like I have friends everywhere.

It does. And then the other thing is then you get inspired and you meet more people that are strangers who were like I guarantee you if you meet a stranger who's been to Burning Man. So I I this is my my like go-to sweatshirt. It's got my medium.

It's got my name on it and all these ridiculous things. Work hard be nice which is a Michael Franty thing. Like

Oh yeah.

I'll be walking around with this and someone would be like oh my god I love Burning Man. And I went 1996. I was part of blah camp. And I guarantee you at least 50/50 we will have somebody that we know in common and suddenly this happens all the time. I don't know if this happens to you where we'll take a selfie of me and this total stranger and send it to that person and they're like, "You two met each other? Great. Guess what? I'm usually having dinner with them like the next week at my house or we meet for lunch and then Half the time you get jobs out of this too, like,

oh yeah,

get tenants. Oh my god, you run an art complex. My friend just lost their studio. You know, so the connections that all start out not as networking, not work, not as like I need to sell you or buy something from you. Suddenly it's oh my gosh, that person used to babysit for my kids or wow, I wanted to learn how to weld and they were finishing up a beautiful sculpture out there. there and and it was so fun to fly up to San Francisco and for a day work on you know this piece with the Flaming Lotus girls and hey I met Slinky and I know you guys are f like suddenly the entire network is based on a sheer love of friendship being creative and being open-minded about people which I think is so valuable at this you know it's a currency that there it's invaluable these days.

Oh yeah yeah yeah I mean I always I don't know famously tell people that I think like the the like the business of Burning Man. It's like it's the connection you know it's like we go to this place or I mean regionals the same thing you know like uh where it's like it kind of dissolves these boundaries between us and it's like we everybody kind of goes for whatever reason like the spectacle or I heard it's a big party but like the reason we come back not because it's just like oh I like to get f***** up. It's just like oh you've been doing this for 40 years so why cuz I like to get f***** up a lot. Yeah.

Like it's like no, it's something else is bringing you back, isn't it? Right. And it's usually it's like

I don't know family, friends, you know.

I had a friend who I lost touch with. His name very beautiful name was be. And beige was a wonderful brilliant man who his whole life had been very repressed. And Bash came out to Burning Man. I think the one of those early years. I think it might have been our bubble wrap camp. And we we had a dance floor of bubble wrap and just let people sit. and pop bubbles. Problem was we found out is you have to bring all that back and it's a lot of m but um Beige had never let go, never let loose and and he was totally himself the whole week and then about I think it was like Friday night he went off and then we didn't see him for two days and he came back with his head shaved and painted wearing a tutu and he walked up to a fire a burn platform and burned one of his suits that he brought from his very strict financial background 9 to5 and he burned his suit and a bunch of his socks which I thought was interesting but so he had brought one clean cuz with my recommendation I'm like hermetically seal one nice outfit that you can drive home in and he never went back he said it changed his life and the very next year changed jobs, met the woman that he married, got a dog, found the perfect house, had a workshop in his backyard, and only did his own art for himself, still went to his nineto-five, very high pressure financial job, but he did it. And that was awesome. And it inspired him and he credits it to changing his life. And then that was like boom. And then I've never heard never seen him in probably 15 years.

Wow.

But those are also So the the effects that it can have on you. I'm the opposite. It affected me in a way that now my work is based on it. My community and my friend circle is all based on it. So

I mean how many people could can you think of that like like went to Burning Man and was just like, "Oh yeah, changed me. Not for me. I'm going back to the like investment world."

Yeah. It was so weird. And I also have some friends who, this is an interesting one, who hate the environmental of it. The pia cracks. their skin so much that they bleed in their hands and they don't like that aspect of it. And they love going to the regionals because they can drive to it. They can have a bathroom. They can get their little awesome cute vintage camper where they have a bed and their sink and their own bathroom and they're not dusty. So, they still get a little bit of that creative in the community, which they love the community side of it, but they can't take the Black Rock Desert. And that's another

population of people who are like and they're couldn't breathe. I have friends who have asthma who would love to go out and they're like, I can't breathe. I can't do it.

So, yeah.

Exactly.

I'm so glad to finally meet you, by the way. I've we've we've had similar circles for all of this time and thank you for

podcast. So many people really love it. It's it's great to talk about this stuff, especially when you're so spread out. So, thank you for what you do.

Oh, thank you. Well, thank you. I think we're about an hour and 15, so um I guess we'll sign off here. But yeah, thank you so much for the interview.

Yeah, of course. All right. Well, hopefully I'll see you one of these days and I will say Oh, go ahead.

Oh, no, no, we could talk like afterwards, but we're just going to sign off and I'll stop recording. Yeah,

sounds good. Okay.

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