EP 65 Lady Bee

Episode 65 with Lady Bee is out now! Meet Lady Bee, a long-time member and former art curator for the Burning Man organization. The conversation traces her journey from discovering the event in 1995 to her influential career managing art grants and archival collections that document the culture's material history. Lady Bee reflects on the evolution of the Burning Man community, emphasizing how the movement shifted from a small, unstructured gathering into a global "permission engine" that fosters collaboration over competition and brings public art into the mainstream. Her story is a historical testimony to the power of decentralized creativity and the enduring importance of community-building beyond the physical confines of the desert.

ladybee@burningman.org

https://gallery.burningman.org/

https://playamakers.com/

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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, that lovable pollinator. No, that Andy. Today our guest is the one, the only Lady Bee. Welcome.

Hello everyone.

I was there in Hawaii with you right about now.

So lady be so you said you you went 28 years straight. So what was the what was your first year and what what

95 and so what

how did you hear about it? Like what got you to go like what?

Okay. So I had moved to San Francisco from New York in 1991 and I let's see I read about it was there was an article in 1995 in what I think was the Bay Guardian at the time about this event in the desert and I thought, "Huh, that sounds interesting." And my girlfriend had a truck and she said, "Yeah, I saw that, too. Let's go out there." It was three days long at the time. We knew nobody. We knew nothing about it. We went I went out there and I was thrilled because the thing I loved about it was, "Yeah, okay. This is a bunch of people like me who are disgusted with our horrible consumer culture and lack of community and all that stuff. But they're just they're not just whining about it. They're first of all really smart people and second of all, they're doing something about it. They're creating their own little city away from all this. I was greatly impressed. And when I was out there, I met Miss P. Seagull, who's a used to be very well-known figure in the community, probably not so much anymore, but she had a little cafe, which was she had one little coffee pot set up on a table, and there were two guys in front of me, and I was the third in line. I thought, "Oh, poor woman. I'll kind of try to talk to these guys and distract them while they're waiting for their coffee so they don't get upset with her. And I met her and told her my little story and she said, "Oh, if you just moved here and you want to have more fun in San Francisco, join the Cacophony Society." And I said, "Of course, what is that?" And she told me. So after three days at Burning Man, I was very inspired. And I went back and by that was late, you know, that was September 95. And by Christmas, I knew everybody, Larry, Marian, Harley, all the founders. lots of other, you know, eggchair Steve, all kinds of other people in the community and I was quite thrilled and there was a group called it was an early Burning Man email list called the Diox list or something and it was an email list and I was on there and I was having to quickly think of a new email of an I was just getting email had to think of an email address. I did one sorry that's taken I was going to be ladybugs. I like insects a lot. I collect them. I'm really into insects. So I thought I'm about B. I guess I'll be Lady B. And that was the nickname that stuck like glue on this Bernie man email list. I couldn't stop it. Everyone started calling me Lady B. And it was actually okay because my real name is Christine Kristen. Christine with a ch. Kristen with a K. I always get three the same three comments from everyone. Oh my god, your first name's the same as your last name. No, actually it isn't. Well, wait a minute. How do you spell that? And then I have to spell it. And then they always say, what were your parents thinking? It's like, I don't know. I was, you know, 12 hours old. How would I know if they were? But Lady Bee's kind of better. It's a goofy name, but it's easier than trying to spell my real name and all that. So, I got on this email list and there was a group that I became friends with called the Diox. And they started um God, what's the name of their village? The Blue Light District at Burning Man, which has been going forever. And I camped with them for several years. And they they still they're still existing. We went on like every weekend there was a costume party. a camping trip, something. It was quite fun. So, I went again in 96, which was a difficult year, but also a good year in some ways. And I was in the opera that year, Pepe's opera.

Oh, you were?

No, wait, not Pepe's opera. It was the um Helco procession.

Oh, okay.

Devil or something in the Helco thing, which was actually a very cool performance, I must say. Although, that was not a good year. And that's the year that set us off on the path of rules in society, which is why I'm sure John told you John and Larry split off because of that. John felt like it was just a goofy kind of outsider event and small and it should stay like that. And Larry said, "No, I want to influence the whole world. This should be bigger. Let's have a real city and have principles and blahy blah." So, I get why John left. And John is a good friend of mine and he's

never nasty about Burning Man with me. He'll say, "No, I know the art's really interesting. There's some good stuff." But just personally, he

had a falling out with Larry and there's several people that have falling this out with Larry.

Well, I think with with John like he kind of like it it's just kind of small, right? And and just not really like institutional. And

I think even like the whole like like Santa Con Santa Rampage thing. I mean, did you see the documentary that came out?

No, I'm really not that interested in it.

I went to the first one in San Francisco. It was really small and really fun. And then then I think the next year when was when they flew to Seattle or something. I didn't go

Portland. Yeah. Yeah.

But like I said, when things become when the popular culture gets its hands on something, it's always ruined.

Yeah.

The Burning Man. Not that it's ruined. I mean,

well, it's evolved into something different.

What's that?

It's evolved into something different.

Yeah. And, you know, I just, you know, I I I do the I'm retired, you probably know, for about a year now, but I still do the the Meltwater media feed on Mondays as a volunteer because I find it interesting. And it's a feed that subscribe to and you get for every whichever dates you select you get every newspaper magazine article video with burning and man in the title or the content so a lot of it's irrelevant burning this you know whatever but I go through all that and I archive the u press articles and the video YouTube videos and then we've got an archive of all that stuff but I find it interesting I kind of like reading what what's going on and what all that but I'm also on Facebook and I see a lot of the naysayers And what what kills me the most is the people that have never been to Burning Man, but they're going to tell us how f***** up it is. And they're going to tell it's a pagan ritual or they're tell us it's demonic.

And you get these goofy Christian guys. I think don't these people have anything better to do? They've never been, but they're going to spend an hour talking about how it goes against Christ's teachings or whatever. Now, I'm not a Christian, mind you.

Anything. I'm sort of a Buddhist, but

it just gets me crazy that these ignorant is kind of stunning sometimes.

Yeah. Well, it crosses it's across the spectrum. I remember seeing running across something on social media where

I'm not sure what was the latest thing for people to get upset about. Maybe it was the the Epstein files or or something or um

uh what's his name? Trump's brother or not Trump Elon Musk brother. Yeah. Uh

but there was somebody who was made this poster was just like you know what like I was planning on going to Burning Man for the first time this year, but but now I'm not. I'm going to go and I want to camp by myself in this other like like remote lake bed and stuff. And it was funny cuz like people were just kind of just like fine like go camp by yourself, you know? But but yeah, but it's just funny people kind of coming out of the woodwork just like it it's it's like it's like I didn't read your book, but let me tell you about how I hated it, you know?

Yeah.

No, it's very annoying like and they say things that aren't true and just just annoying it. Mostly I don't bother responding. Every now and then I will like somebody recently, what was it? Posted some little video about this woman and her dog at Burning Man. And I said, "Excuse me, there's no dogs at Burning Man." And a lot, you know, I I will say one thing. Before AI, the media feed was pretty interesting. And now it's twice as long and really annoying because a ton of these ridiculous AI videos, which is pretty much babes of Burning Man, right? Here's the woman at Burning Man and they're really It's like Burning Man is the last thing that needs AI. It's already weird and goofy enough, right?

Yeah.

But nope, the AI's got it. So, that's annoying to me. And then the second annoying thing that happens now is all these endless DJ videos of their set. God, make it stop. So, I kind of curate the news, right? It has to be an article that is actually about Burning Man, not an article about festivals that just refers to Burning Man.

No AI videos, no DJ videos. And know Christian religious Bernie man's satanic cult videos.

So I put down actual mostly participant generated videos about their experience or just basically decent articles about it.

Yeah. I do have to say I really enjoy the Mark Day, you know, his

Oh, he's great. Yeah.

Yeah. His AI because he he's come out with some incredible things. Like I remember there was a series of um God, what was it like? Like like box action figure kind of things But like each one was based on like an archetype.

Hilarious. So, okay. So, some of my listeners have actually never been to Burning Man. Some of them are kind of new. Um, so like what was your position within the organization all these years?

Well, let's see. When I was uh when I started getting involved with Larry and the founders and all that, they they uh had a show at the the first show ever at an art museum, which was the San Francisco art, not artist, San Francisco Arts Commission, gave us a big show and Larry and I had been on an email list talking with the Vicky Olds who they had hired to curate it and I said to her, you know, this is my background. I have an MFA from the Chicago Art Institute. I was making art in New York, got disgusted, completely disgusted by the art world, moved to San Francisco, found Burning Man. And so I had said I had emailed her, you know, I can help you with this. And of course, they did need help. So remember they hired me for one month to help curate this show. And in that process, I realized, oh my god, I'm a way better curator than maker of art. I had stopped making art. I wasn't sure why I was doing it. I hated the art world. And I thought, God, I spent my whole life in art school. What what now? And then I because of that, I realized, oh my god, I'm a really good curator. I have serious aesthetics. And you know, so what happened then? Oh, Larry knew that I knew about art and Larry hired me. to start and run the art grant program in 1999. He told me about it and I I remember when we I I worked with him on that show at the Art Commission Gallery and I told him, you know, this is really great. I love creating the art. If this could be a job, this is the only job I want because I was freelancing in book production basically before computers happen. And so in 99 he called me and it was great. Said, "Would you like to run the art the new art grant program?" Like yes, please sign me up. So For the first 10 years, I I was just called the art curator. And then I left for a couple years to work for Burning Man startup, which crashed in '08, like everything else. And then I went back to Burning Man as the archavist and the art collection curator. So I hang all the art at the office. I get photos and have them mounted by our printer who's a burner, lives close to the office, which is at 19th in Alabama in the mission in San Francisco. So I've I've hung all the art in the office, which is my style is more is more. Not less is more. So, every inch is packed with art. And then I run eight archives. I manage them, which sounds like a lot of work, but it isn't really that bad. It's Playa artifacts, which is all the things that people make and gift on Playa jewelry, stickers, patches, all that stuff. That's just that's the really fun archive, of course. It's all boxes in the office in the archive room.

And the media archive is another one that I told you about, Meltwater feed, where I archive, you know, press articles and video. and stuff. What else is there? The regional archives, which is all the things people make and gift at the regionals. We have a photo archive and with tons and tons of stuff and that's actually online. I feel bad because people don't seem to know about it anymore. It's gallery.burnernieman.org and it's used to be called the photo gallery or the image gallery and that's every year Bernie man widely documented in photos that participants submit. So, you should check it out. So, you could look up things like that's where I got the temporal decomposition shot. I just went and get gallery and search temporal decomposition saw the photos. It's it's a great resource which I I think it's probably not so well known anymore.

I'll put it in the show notes, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Please do because I wish more people knew about that. What else? What else?

Well, how much of these archives are actually like other than the photos like how much of it's online or people can see like like all of these like artifacts and stuff? I mean, like

artifacts museum is so great. We haven't put a lot of it online although a lot of it ends up in the in the photo gallery.

But there's this great guy, Paul Dathaw, who started his own website, which you should definitely check out, which is his collection and archiving of everything ever made at Bernie Man.

Let me let me just quickly check that. I can't remember the title of it, but I will I just look at my

What was his name?

Uh Paul Death. Let me spell that.

Here. Just looking him up because I want to give be the right. Yeah, plyiamakers.com have addit. It's so much fun and every anybody can submit a thing they've made or a thing they've collected and give him whatever information they have. But I always laugh because I think you know Bernie man I was the hired archavist but really Pauler is archiving all the material culture in a really great way. Our ours isn't public really. And then there's another guy T-Bone Todd from Lake Tahoe who has something called the PL artifacts museum which is his huge collection of everything people gift him and give him for the museum and then he frames it all and it's really quite nice and he does it at Burning Man every year and he also did it at Unscrews last year and maybe this year too.

Oh yeah, I'm going to be there in less than a month. I'll be able to check that out.

Well, I'm still waiting to get tickets because we you know they sold out in 15 minutes and I we couldn't get tickets but you know I've stopped going to Bernie man as of last year but

we found Unscrews last year and really loved it. What's not to like? It's like a two-hour drive from San Francisco. No ply dust, no heat, no dead,

grass, theme camps, they burn something. Yeah. Great. Thank you.

I saw recently I think they had either maybe like another batch of tickets going on sale or something

or like if you go to like their Facebook

Yeah. group paying attention, I should.

Yeah.

So cool. If I go to the Facebook group, I might score a couple tickets.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And then um I don't know. I mean I figured they must know you. You're known around. He's like, "Ah, you have to talk to Oh, who's this? We have an extra guest face and throat."

Hey, this is my interview. The back of your head down your neck.

Oh, is that some sort of meditation thing?

What is that?

Smooth out all those muscles.

Oh god. I don't know what Hold on.

Unless that's the cat telling you that muscles of your shoulders.

Okay, hold on.

Like tiny knotted ribbons. Yeah, just

Lady Bee has the magic talking cat that

Okay.

Tell you to relax.

No, I'll just if you need an explanation there.

I have essential tremor. I got it from my father. It's in your hands.

You don't see it much now, but if I hold something like in my finger, my hand will start to shake. And my my mom had it and she was like this when she was in her 90s. And I don't want to get like that because I won't be able to

stuff. And

so I'm working with him. He's the guy who founded the a self bio feedback institute. He's a burner, really nice guy and it's really working. He teaches you how to do this total relaxation thing and it relaxes the muscle in your forearm that causes the tremor. He's helped me a lot. So that's a thing of his that I do.

Yeah. I have to keep my cat I have to close the door because she's always like

stepping on the keyboard. Yeah.

So Okay. So

my cat You saw what my cat just did, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Very common. It's very common. They're always getting on the keyboard. So I was like, you know, it would be good for your interview, right? Yeah. So, so in '95, you go, you meet Miss P. So, how did you Oh, so you started doing the cacophony and you started like meeting everybody.

Started going to the cacophony events which were super fun.

Hanging out at 1907 Golden Games.

Oh, absolutely. All the time. Because that's why Pete would have these fabulous salons, I think, once a month. And

that was really my great introduction to Larry and Marian and everybody. that was running Burning Man because they all went to PE's things. And PE is actually the one who thought of the Black Rock Desert as as an event site in 1990 when they couldn't do it on the beach anymore. That was

Yeah. Well, she had um I guess one of her roommates God, I'm now like totally

Are you going to interview her? Have you?

Oh, Miss P. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I already interviewed her. She came out a couple of weeks ago.

She's great. I'm very fond of her.

Yeah. Um I'm totally for his name now. One of her well one of her roommates had had gone out to the Black Rock Desert in like 89 or something and I think Miss P might have went and they was some sort of like um

yeah

like sculptural thing like where it was like wind powered sculpture event.

Phil Benson um hell was that called?

Yeah,

as I like to say my memory is aging a lot faster than I am. I'm 74. Right.

Yeah.

Thank god my husband has a really good memory. As long as one of a couple can can remember stuff that's good.

But if you both can't remember anything, not so good. Anyhow, what the hell was that called? Temporary autonomous song. No, that's what Hakeim Bay called, man. Desert Side Works.

Uh, I think

I remembered something.

I come.

Yeah, I'm sure I remember the the sequence, but anyway. Um, so they went out there in the year before and this her roommate, which I'm totally blanking on his name right now. Um, he kind of came up with this whole concept of, you know, bringing because he was like an art school and he brought some of his artwork out there and I guess there was some some things that

Bill Benson, William Benson.

No,

no, William Benson was the other thing, not not Burning Man. I don't remember the guy's name. I probably knew him, but I can't think of it.

But anyway, so he brought some of his artwork out there and then like earned it and I mean so and and then he was the one who kind of found like Hakee Bay and the whole idea of like the temporary autonomy zone and this and that and I remember like he he came back and he was telling everybody

Brian Doerty.

No, you know about Brian, right?

Poor Brian. Yeah. And and so he just at the time of this recording now this is April 4th. It's like yeah he passed away like just recently

which was a great shock and a great reminder to all of us just cherish every day of your life because anything can happen to any of us at any time.

So, do you know what happened? Like all I heard was that he was hiking and there was some

he was something

uh in I think it was in Salelo or something. He was climb on a beach and he was climbing up onto a cliff rocky thing to read poetry to a group of people and he had a bad leg and he had a cane and he just took a wrong step and fell and fell down into the ocean and they found his body the next day.

Oh,

it's so random. It's just like everybody cherish it every day. cuz you never know what's coming.

Was he just by himself?

No, he had a group of people and he was going to get up. He was going up standing up them above them to read poetry which he loved doing when he fell. Oh, so in a sense, you know, they all they always say that, you know, we should all be so lucky as to be doing something we love and then just boom, you're dead. Like gardening or you're making art or something. And in a sense, he kind of had that. He was about to read his poems to people which he loved. And then Bye.

Yeah, it

was only 57. Jesus. Young guy.

Yeah, I know. Yeah. Well, it was crazy. Like he was on my list, my wish list of people to interview and I was like, oh, I'll get I'll get around to him like in about two months or something. I was like, he'll be around, you know, like like, oh no, you know.

So anyway, the person

where people are starting to leave the party and I'm thinking, oh my god, it's just going to get worse and worse because all my friends, many of them are are in their 70s, some are 80. And

Mhm. And not all of us take care of ourselves.

How old are you?

I'm 55, you know.

Young thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like, you know, I quit smoking a number of years ago. I now drink like once a week instead of like once a day.

Yeah. Good.

You know, like, you know, so I've been attempting to, you know, do do better, you know, do better.

Yeah.

I think as you get older, you just do because you know you've been around, you've done everything and you you know it's not like go and like try something. Oh did

or you don't get older,

right?

What's that?

It's like you either do or you don't get older.

Yeah.

So the person's name I was thinking was Kevin Evans.

Yeah, that's right. And I didn't know him, but sometimes he people will contest piece claim to have thought of the black jazz and they say no, it was really Kevin Oans, but who cares really?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what I heard was that okay, so Kevin and Miss P and like some people went out to there black rock desert in '89 and did this

wind powered like arch event whatever and then they came back and then everything happened with Burning Man and or not like u the burning of the man at Baker Beach in 1990 where they couldn't actually burn the man,

right? And then

they were hanging out at 1907 Golden Gate and like oh what are we going to do?

And so the story that I was told was that, you know, the Black Rock Desert was was brought up as as as an idea and Larry at first was just like, "What? No."

Like he he actually didn't like the idea like at first, you know, and then kind of had to be kind of convinced and then and it was more of like a cacophony like zone trip. Yes.

thing like like featuring

like the Burning Man whatever.

And then and then from like interviewing like Paradox Pollock and some of the people who've been there like in like the the early years. It seemed like there was a number of different things that kind of happened there like those first few years like like you're saying like like Desert Sight Works.

Yeah.

Uh trying to think like some of the other things like going on there, you know, and so I think like in 96 when everything kind of went crazy and burned down

like and reached ahead like it was that was definitely like an inflection point. And so it was either like we're saying like like John Law was just like you know of the of the the camp of like you know we like this this kind of small scale thing that's unorganized whatever like let's if it has to die it must die and then like Larry who I think you know saw this as

his I mean I think eventually he would find it see like as his life's work his his reason for being you know he wanted it to be like a movement or he wanted more people to so I think you know that was the direction that

he you know, kind of shepherded in and and other people came along with him and a lot of people left,

you know, if you read Coyote's book, you know, and you like with like Will Roger, you like and like like and so rebuilding DPW and and and you know, talking to to to Marian and

and and Harley, you know, it's like those were some very formative years, right? I mean, they were we had to like incorporate and they had to like work with the the government And

yeah.

Yeah. And then there was the whole like uh 97 the year when there was on the Walapai Playa and was the different jurisdiction, right? And then the the sheriff took all the money.

Yeah. They thought that that would help having it on private land and it was even worse because cops came and seized all the tickets gate money. It was outrageous. And then Larry at the end, you know this at the end, Larry got up and spoke and said, "If people can donate,

we'd be very grateful." And I think people who donated a certain amount got You took it to your for life or something.

I know. It's funny because I have a couple of friends who got that. My one friend Curtis Coleman. Um, God, who else? Oh, I think uh George Pap also bought one. I remember at the time thinking like if only I had like was like 500 bucks or something.

Yeah.

A ticket to Breakman for life. Like

I think it was 500. But

yeah, but you know

nice the community step everybody stepped up and helped out and as you know the rest is history as they say but idea wasn't so great and now we actually own that land which is fly.

Oh yeah.

So

so when you went back in like your second year in 1996 I mean did did you uh were already just kind of like part of like the the organizing group of people

or how was your involvement?

Uh let's think 96. Helco, right? You were working with

Yeah, I was briefly I was had a small role in the Helco thing. So, yeah, I knew the the staff and those people, but but mostly I said it was this group called the DAX group that formed the Blue Light District and we would have parties and campouts pretty much every weekend and

lots of costume stuff and goofy things. So, I, you know, camped with them for years and then I camped with the Mansonian Institute starting in gosh, maybe 2000 or something. That was really That's David Silverman, who's the Simpsons cartoonist.

Oh, the flaming tuba.

Yeah. Tuba man. Flaming tuba man.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then in 2016, I had known Leo Variel from the beginning cuz he, you know, he started coming even before I did or maybe it was 95 too and he came his brought his father once and he's was always doing light stuff out there and what was my point here saying something about him? Lifetime burners. Uh we talk about like when you went back blue light district and some of friends.

Oh yeah. So in 2016 Leo asked Betto and I my husband to camp with them in Disorient and we've been with them ever since and that's become a really good it's a very interesting camp with people from all over the world and we've become good friends with many of them and they have an event in New York every May called Country Club and we've started going to that. So that's kind of our new Burning Man. It's not really Burning Man but it's sort of like that. But it's on a site. One of the one of the people in the group has a house on the site. There's a river to swim in and trees and it's really pretty fabulous.

Is it like upstate or is it like more?

Oh yeah, it's in Shandin upstate New York. And Betto, my husband has a little house in Elsa, not Elbronte, in um Lance Bay, which is quite a small town in the Catskills. So he goes up every way every year that time anyway to check on the house. So I just started going with him and going to country club.

Mhm. Here he is. Now

he's your lucky day.

Oh, male. Good. So Andy, come here. This is my husband, Betto.

Hello.

Hi. Pleasure to meet you.

This is Andy who lives in Hawaii.

Yeah. We're doing a interview for my show called the the shadow of the man.

The shadow of the man.

It's all about how like Bernie man has impacted and influenced people. So we're getting uh Lady Bee's here's story.

Cool.

So yeah, Bento, we met in December 2013. And he had gone to Bernie man once in 96.

96. Yeah.

And I felt like, okay, he had experienced that. I said, well, darling, that's about to change. So, he's been every year now with me since 2014.

Ah. So, you said 2024 was your last year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, would you I mean, just say like, ah, forget it. You're never going again. Or like I think like most people I know who've been gone for a while and then they're like, well, I'll take some time off. It's like maybe if you're like, you know what, um, Santorini might be kind of fun this year. here.

No, honestly,

I I you know, Betto said he's done and he does all the heavy lifting and I don't rule it out. It's like maybe we'll go again someday, but it has changed a lot. And like I like I tell you, I see all these Burning Man naysayers and I always say to them, you know, if you don't like it, just don't go. But what's the point of, you know, publicly shaming Marian or publicly saying how trashed Bernie man is? You just don't go like it.

And

well, it's one of the constants of of people is the entire time is that people always say that oh B it's not like it was before you know people

was 40 years ago

but like in 96 people were like it's not like it was in 1990 you know in 2005 it's like it wasn't like it was in 1996 and now people like oh it wasn't like it was in 2010 or you know

like I said I see all the Bernie man naysayers and what what I have to say on the subject is yes of course it's changed but it's not like it's all influenced and rich people and DJs. No, I mean there's a lot of hardcore hard longtime burners that still go. There's plenty of people that still get the 10 principles and put on a cool theme camp and

all that stuff is still there. It's just a lot of things now. Yeah, there's the rich people. Okay, they're their thing. And then there's the influencers and all that stuff. And then there's the early burners and people that actually get Burning Man. I mean, you know, anything you want to find, it's there.

Yeah,

that's sickening. Like, oh yeah, it's a hippie pagan love. No. There's nothing. I've been 28 burns. I've never met a pagan. And it's not a party. It's a temporary community. It's a global worldwide community on six, you know, we have 100 regional events on six continents.

And Larry always said, "Someday Black Rock City is going to go away and it's going to be all about the regionals." And honestly, I think that time is near because what worse place is there to hold an annual event than a desert as global warming unfolds, right?

We already had one year was 117 degrees a couple years ago. I'll never forget that you couldn't function. We sat in our air conditioned van all day.

It's the last thing you want to be doing at Burning Man, right?

But I think, you know, seems likely to me it's just going to get too hot eventually to have it. But who knows? The weather now is completely unpredictable. Nobody knows anything about

what's coming. So,

yeah. I mean, I think that there's also, like I said, like I I' I'd taken 13 years off and they came back. And I mean, yes. lot of the things were different, but so much of it was the same, too. I I think that like like we're talking about like the the things that we really love about it, you know, it's like it's still there. I think the core of it still there.

Absolutely.

And the main thing is the art. I mean, it's to me that was I was always very focused on the art. And people don't know this, but Bernie man is the single largest funding funer of arts in the state of California. Has been for a long time. I I think it it used to be. I'm pretty sure it still is. Check. Google that or something because it may not be true anymore.

But they give over a million bucks a year to art installations. And I've seen people get careers built out of Burning Man. Like I'll give you a great example, Kate Rodenber Bush, you know her, she does tons of stuff there.

She did she was a photographer and was going there to take photos and then she she said to me at one point she didn't feel it was enough and she should make art, which she had never done. So she made a piece that was pretty good and she just kept going and now she's a full-time sculptor. She makes art installations for other events and other festivals. And she didn't have any art changes because of Burning Man as she became an artist. And another good one is Brian Tedric who's done like the portal of evolution, the big butterfly wings with the thingy womb thingy. It's now in Reno. And he one year I remember when I was our curator, I was out and I saw this beautiful piece he did that was a rotating fish made all from recycled metals. Quite long. like six feet long and you could spin the thing. And I went there every day hanging around hoping to meet the artist. Finally, he showed up and I said told him what I was. I said, "Look, please apply for a grant. Your work is really good." He's like, "Oh, you know, I make these metal gates and I'm pretty busy and I'll get around to it." And I pestered him for two years. Finally, he did gave us a grant and the rest is history. He's done such great work there. And he didn't become an artist because of Burner Man. He was already an artist, but it set him on a new another path with his work. And yeah. So, you know,

how much of that do you think is like um I don't know like the some of this stuff might just be like latent like inside of people and like Brady man or or like the play or or even like regional events to you know um just having the the the space to like radically express yourself like cuz like in the rest of life rest of society it just it's like like oh you're too busy oh you have to like make money to like make your your rent or whatever or to feed yourself or your family or whatever or or people just constantly telling you like what what why are you doing that? It's like you should be doing X Y or Z instead of but it's just it's kind of giving a place at a space you know where you know it's like hey like let your imagination yeah

run free and and just see what happens and also not only that like look at the person over here look at that person over there it's like look at what they've done and like you get like inspiration it's like you know I have this crazy idea.

Yeah, it's been called a permission engine, right? Because people go out there and they see some cool installation and they think, "Huh, I could do something like this and then they get a bunch of their friends and they get a crew together and they make art." So, you know, it's inspired people all over the world. And the thing that was a big issue for me because I was an art world person. I went, you get MFA from Chicago Art Institute, lived in New York, was had shows in galleries, all that stuff. And so, when I was hired at first, I thought, well, this is good. Larry and I run the grant program. He and I look at the grant proposals. And we always pretty much saw eye to eye on stuff, which was pretty easy. But I was thinking, yeah, I just want to work with the funded art, the really good stuff. The rest of it, it's sort of crappy. And I took me years really to get over my snotty art world idea that, you know, only these certain projects are good and there's just a lot of crap out there. And then after years of doing that, I realized, oh, this is great. This is, you know, you don't have to have anything to do with art school or the art world. Anybody can come out here. And where else on the planet can you come make a piece of art, put it out in a place where 80,000 people are going to look at it nowhere.

So that's very cool. So you can never have made art and you make something and you get a lot of feedback, people like it and then you keep going. And like I said, people have become artists because of Burning Man. And that was a radical idea because it's always been about the galleries and now there's a lot more public art and and also a lot more community-based art all, you know, we see that all over the world now. You go any city you go to street art and public art, murals and art everywhere.

And sometimes I wonder if Bernie man had something to do with that because it did. The whole idea was to take art out of the, you know, institutional art world and put it in the public for everybody where it belong.

I'm thinking, you know, that might have something to do with Bernie man that there's all this public art and but also definitely people working together and crews because, you know, from the art world I was from, it was all about you, your show, your gallery, your art. No. body's going to make a mark on your work. Hell no. But at Burning Man, it's like, oh, communal art. A lot of people are going to work on this and build it together and gift it to the community. It was quite a radical idea really.

So, once somebody said to me, yeah, Burning Man's like art without the money. And in a way, that's true. There's still money that, you know, people get grants and spend money doing it, but

it's not like they're looking to sell it. Even though now,

do they mean more like the art in its purest form or something, which is like art for art's sake instead of just for money?

Art for art sake. And now of course people will sell work after the burn and people see work and they like it. And then and also the interesting new things that a lot of burning man art now has been installed as public art all over the country and in San Francisco right now they're having that embaradero art thing and I we went a couple weeks ago and Michael Christian one of Michael Christian's pieces is on the Embaradero El Nino has a piece Kate not Kate Rodish Dana Albany's Mermaid and it's all sitting out on the Embaraderoa and now they've got work in Golden Gate Park. The um

what was that piece?

Captain Naga. Yeah, Nag that's in Golden Gate Park now. And there's Burning Man art all over San Francisco and Reno, too.

So, it's it's definitely contributed a lot to public art in the country. And of course,

are there I don't I just heard these rumors or stories like are there people actually who like wealthy people going to Bernie man kind of like looking at as not quite a shopping trip, you know, but people kind of like hm you know it's just like I would like to put that in my installation or I would like to have this you know

well actually you know that Larry saw that as a really good thing because he was I remember when he did uh I remember the year where there was something about the Italian Renaissance and that's what happened

oh Da Vinci's

yeah Da Vinci's workshop people

worked in guilds and learned skills and it was all financed by the wealthy or the church and well that was the church really and Larry thought you know okay so we have wealthy burners that come here now and then They buy art. Great. What's not to like? And I don't know that people go there intentionally to buy art, but even I have recently purchased a piece of Bernie man art. That's a good story, actually. My husband and I, after nine years of looking, finally found property in the country. And you may have noticed I was walking through our house.

Um, so we have this great house, an acre and a quarter. I spend tons of time weeding. I have OCD, right? But I like to say now I have OCWD. I think I said this before, right? Obsessive.

Well, before we weeding disorder.

Yeah.

Spent the whole morning weeding. Anyhow, um so I have this friend Scott Levoff aka Professor Violet who runs the Mystic Midway stuff in San Francisco. And I think it was 2014 we did the Midway as the theme of Burning Man. And he brought his Mystic Midway crew into center camp. And there were all these different groups that had interesting interactive things in center. camp. Two years we did that. One year was caravans re the souk, so people had these marketplace souks, but they were gifting everything. Even Larry had one. And then the second year was Midway, so it was interactive art performance stuff. So that's how I know Scott. So recently he posted on Facebook, oh um that he was selling some of the giant teapotss. Were you there the year that the British guy did the was called the Lost Tea Party? or six giant teapotss on long long legs and wheels and they would drive around the ply and they'd give people tea and really cool thing. So apparently this guy was a little crazy and he left his teapotss on someone's property up here supposedly to paying rent for storing them and then he just never paid her rent and took off and went back to England. So she auctioned them off and Scott somehow got wind of this and bought five of them

and he said to me, "Well,

you know, we're I'm selling three of these." And I said, "Oh, really? Okay. Well, let's go look at them. So, we went to um Obtanium Works in Vallejo. You may know Optanium Works because of the

um what was the name of the piece now? The Never Was Hall, the Victorian House on wheel that for years.

So, that was um Shannon O'Hare's thing and he he runs obtanium work. So, the teapotss were being stored there. So, I went over there, had this great time looking at all his rec recycled metal stuff and the teapotss and I bought the black and white one. So, he's going to fix it up a little bit and then it's being delivered on uh early in June and I'm just thrilled. It's like I've never bought a giant piece of art before and now I have and it's a giant teapot and it's going to be sitting on our front lawn. Cool.

Well, how far out do you live? You know, like in a suburb or something and people can be like, "What is that crazy teapot on your lawn?"

Yeah. See that? That's my bedroom window.

Oh, very nice.

It's uh called Two Rock and it's an incorporated area. It's west of Pedaluma. It's about 10 12 minutes from Pedaluma.

It's it's halfway between Pedaluma and Point Ray Seashore and it's exactly where we wanted to be north of the city and near to the ocean and near Pedaluma because I love Paluma and that's because of Burning Man, David Best and all the artists Michael Arlington, other artists that have made work. Um,

you know, it's funny when I was interviewed Dan Miller, you know, and he told me that way before 1986. I think it was like in 1976 or something that Larry actually went to some some event in Paluma. It was like some racco camping trip and racu firing thing. So I think and he was saying that that was like the original original kind of like inspiration in Larry's mind like where he kind of first got this kind of idea of like oh people kind of camping out and fires and like Yeah. Yeah. I mean I don't know. I mean it's an apocryphal story but like that's what It's funny because like he said he was there but he didn't know Larry at the time and then later on they became like roommates. But

yeah,

I always think that Larry was probably inspired by um Desert Sight Works

because that was going out in the desert and I'm trying to think the guy's name who does it actually been to their house and

yeah I it seems like there's a number of things

William Benson that

so that was going on and and then you know I don't know you know I don't know How I think a lot of

question how Larry thought of the idea of Burning Man. I don't know.

Well, I think a lot of people nowadays think it's like, oh, it just sort of sprang whole cloth out of his breast, you know, but like I think it's like over time, you know, like this happened and that happened and they kind of got incorporated together. Even the whole like 10 principles, like some people think like, oh, Larry came down with these these two stone tablets with these 10 principles like on the beach and it's like, no, no.

You probably know that story. That's because the regional were starting and they needed guidance from us. And like

it was like 2004 or something

to try to write something. But he didn't invent those as guidelines or rules. He just identified stuff that was already going on in the community

like participation was like remember people used to always say no spectators.

Yeah. Participation radical inclusion gift the gift economy and people were doing that and it's not like Larry said oh here's we're going to have this event and we should do these things. No.

Even leave no trace like remember John Law said like that was like a a cacophony thing from for years going on like Yeah.

So he just identified community stuff that was already going on. He didn't

Yeah. So I have another question. We were talking about the whole like art world and and Burning Man cuz like the like the I don't know what you want to call that. I mean years ago be like the I don't know like legit or like you know like like art world or like the big art world like the Sabbees or whatever you know. It's like I'm sure they would want to have nothing to do with you. You know, it's like some dirty people going out in the desert and doing like crazy things. But, you know, then years go by and there's the this Smithsonian like Bernie like and and so so so talk about like this whole evolution of like I mean so has Bernie man gone from like the outside to the inside and like and how inside is it now?

Huh? That's an interesting question because I remember when I was first hired to run the art grant program. I wrote several pieces that are on the website. You may I may have sent them to you.

Yeah.

About how I fell from the art world and landed at Burning Man. I was determined that the art world should see what was going on up there and they should take it seriously because it wasn't just a bunch of crappy art. There was actually some very good art. So, I went to New York. I remember I spoke at White Columns and Larry spoke at uh sorry, I can't remember the name of the place, but I I was determined they should realize there was more art going on than in New York City. And now, I mean, I'm so un uninvolved at the contemporary art world in New York. I have no idea who's popular and who's selling work and who isn't. I really could give a rat's ass about it honestly. But I like I said, I do think maybe Burning Man has influenced some sort of group art making or I don't know. I could be wrong. But that system in New York is like that's the institutional art world. That's the system artists pretty much have to work with. But not all of them are there. A lot of artists have broken out of that and are doing public art and different kinds of things. So, I don't know what the art world thinks about Burning Man these days because I'm completely detached from the art world. I do remember there's a guy I actually went to the art institute with Jerry Saltz who had become a big art critic in New York and was married to an art critic and he was very pissy about Bernie man and then he went one year and he loved it apparently. So then he started saying nice things about Bernie man.

But I like I said I'm so not in touch with any kind of institutional art world stuff. Couldn't tell you. Leo Verila is a great example. He's a blue chip, worldwide well-known artist. He just did 15 bridges over the river temps in England. He might still be working on that.

Oh, yeah.

And they just did a fabulous re relaunching of the Baylights on the Oakland Bay Bridge. That's Leo Varel who's a longtime burner. He's gone every year since 94 95. And he once told me that no matter how busy he gets, he will never miss a Burning Man because it's his think tank in the desert. and he's so crazy busy. I don't know how he can even go anymore, but he comes out there and his wife comes now and he still goes. He's in disorient started. So,

you know, he's an example of probably the one blue chip artist who goes to Burning Man every year and makes art and would would totally defend Burning Man. But, I don't know, there there was one other sculptor who came one year, liked it. I can't even remember who it was, but Leo is he's it's pretty exceptional that, you know, he's as w known as he is and we'll never miss a Burning Man

and he also has a light piece on the front of Disorient and you can sit there and watch him program it. It's kind of fun.

Funny how the Baylights just reopened. That was a big deal and he was in town and a lot of people went there were two different events celebrating that because they were off for quite a while.

Yeah. Well, Bernie I mean Black Rockck City is also a great place to for people guess to I guess what I would call networking right it's not just for the dot dot dot commerce or you know like but um you know people can come get inspiration. I mean I think also another thing I was thinking about like we're talking about like a this kind of permission structure or or just you know uh of the playa and and be giving like people like inspiration but I think also for people to kind of like look and see you know just like this person's an an official artist and look what they're doing and be like not only like I can do that, but you know what? I have an idea. I can do like something better, you know, or just kind of giving the themselves the the permission to be like like, you know, oh, I didn't even realize I could do this, but now, you know, like, let's let's try. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, interestingly, you know, after years of running the art grant program, I came to the conclusion that cooperation is such a better way to do stuff than competition. How Competition is like pits people against each other and yeah. Okay. People will always argue like no competition is good because then people compete and do better and everything gets better. Well, okay. The Olympics, sure, we have that kind of competition. Yeah, that's great. I'll give you that. But in the art world, why compete about anything? And I don't know. I just realized that, you know, watching all these groups of artists work, you know, there'd be like Michael Christian and then people that help him and then another artist and his group of people that work on his thing and they're not hired workers like many famous artists have crew that they pay to make their stuff. No, it's just like people having this experience together and everything that comes with that and then putting it out for the public at Burning Man and everything that comes from that. I mean, it's just to my mind, like I said, collaboration way better than competition for making and

I don't know what else. But by the way, point out to you, you'll notice behind me

that is an artist named Dara from Amsterdam.

He today probably nobody knows about him because He hasn't come for a while, but he's a very successful, well-known artist in Amsterdam. And he came years ago and made a beautiful boat. What was that thing called? The Lost Ark or something. Really nice boat. And it had a lot of his art pieces on it. And then he came several years after that and did big installations.

That was a map he did. And I just thought that was really nice.

See, but

yeah. Oh, I can see.

Yeah, there's a strip on the left and then up in the top. right corner you can see that's the Burning Man that they're

Ah, okay.

If you can see that.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think that there's like friendly competition on the Playa, you know, like I was interviewing um K Morrison, you know, like the Iron Monkeys and Morrison

and then like and then the Flaming Lotus Girls, you know, it's just like I mean there's sort of like a friendly rivalry, but you know, it's it's you know, I mean Maybe perhaps you can inspire each other to to greatness, you know, but it's not like a tear each other down. It's more, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah. And also another thing that always pops into my head was just that I don't know where this came from, but it's just comparison is the best tool of the devil,

you know, where it's just it's like like don't don't look like over at your neighbor's yard and be like, "Oh, I wish I wish." You know, it's just like just be happy with, you know, what you have. But like I said, like friendly company, you can inspire other people to like you know we can inspire each other.

Yeah. You know the competition thing is a very western idea which I didn't know. I started getting into dowoism

Japanese Buddhist kind of thing and the dowoists said have said that you know Asian cultures didn't have that good better best compare contrast thing compete

and that was sort of a product of western culture which may not be true but I thought that was very interesting that there there would even be a culture that didn't compete and that did didn't have good, better, best, and it was just, oh, that's nice. That's good. Okay. They didn't bother like getting into comparing and all that interesting idea because that's their natural tendency. I think you want to compare things that are similar and

yeah,

you know,

but also, you know, 1990 when they drew that line and applied us and they, you know, there's the whole idea of the temporary autonomy zone. It's like we're creating something new and different, you know, and this is sort of a a different

culture that's now kind of seeded the world as well, right? So, it's like, yeah, we we can do something different, right? So, um, okay, let's get on to the second question. Your your pre-burning man experience, your background. So, you grew up in New New York area.

I was born in Desplaines, Illinois, O'Hare airport land, uh, suburb of Chicago,

and I went to grad school at the Art Institute of Chicago, but I had gone traveling after I finished college, and I had a friend who was in the Peace Corp. in Marrakesh and I was so impressed by what she was doing and how she was living. I knew like okay I got to join the Peace Corps. So when I got my MFA instead of getting a studio and starting to work and getting shows and all that I ran off to Africa. I was um stationed in Lutu, a little mountainous kingdom inside South Africa where I was teaching art to kids there and then I spent a year hitchhiking all over West Africa by myself. I was 26. Best year of my life. It was

what was this like the 80s?

It was Uh 1978.

Oh, okay.

Is that before you were born? I never know that, but I

No, I was born in 71. So I was

a youngster.

I did that for a year. Came back, hated being back, joined, signed up for Peace Corp again. Then I went to Jamaica for two years, which I really loved. And I worked with a wood carvers and I worked at a children's home and I got it's a very small island. You can meet everyone and I still have very dear friends there from 40 years ago. And I go back and stay in a little town on the eastern part of the island. Small town, beautiful. along beach, no hotels, no shops, no restaurants, and the town wants it that way. They didn't want hotels and resorts.

That's good. Yeah.

Yeah, it's fabulous. So,

yeah. You know, I just recently went um

my wife and I went to the the Cook Islands this this past summer.

Nice.

I mean I mean and listeners I don't hesitate to say like everyone should go there, you know, but like it is it's a it's a really remote place. Takes a long time to get there, you know, but it is so beautiful. And we went to this

like so you fly into like rare Tonga and there's only like one flight a week. And then we took this other flight to this other island um called the Itutaki and

it's kind of there's an island but also in atal and there's only like a couple thousand people in the whole area and it the people are just so friendly and so nice and I remember like talking to them and they're like like do you guys get like cruise ships or or because there's only like four flights a day and each plane only has like 25 people or or something and it They're like, "Yeah, we get like one maybe once a year or something." And I and I was and they're like, "Yeah, we we're thinking about we want to like improve the harbor so we like have like cruise ships come." And I was like, "No, no, you don't. No, no, no." They're like, "But we we could use like the the business and and this and that." And we're like it's they were just telling them stories of like different places like uh like like like like Venice or or Barcelona or or Santorini, you know, like many other places that are just just overrun like, you know, with with tourism. Venice closed one of their docks because, you know, it was so gross like by St. Mark's Square or some something very interesting. There's there was a dock nearby and these tons of tourists would pour off the boats and run in there and leave trash and you know, check it out and then leave and leave all their I mean, do you believe this? You an you know, I'm sorry, Americans and trash, don't get me started. That they that you would even go on a cruise ship to me is like

to my mind I'm like a real traveler. would like my West Africa year. I stayed with Africans the whole time. I hitchhiked around. I was open to ideas. Go visit my auntie in this village. Go do this. I didn't stay in resorts or hotels. And I had to test cruise ships. To me, that's like the most appalling and unsustainable way to travel. They dump a ton of s*** into the oceans. They use a lot of fuel to get people around. And that's I'm sorry, that's not traveling. You hang out on this cruise ship with its amusement park and gym and swimming pools and all that stupid crap they have now on cruise ships with a bunch of other annoying Americans and then jump off in some town for a couple hours and run around and take pictures and look at it and you think, "Oh yeah, I've been to Rome."

Hardly.

Really? I just I think they're completely disgusting. You couldn't pay me to go on a cruise. Sorry.

Yeah.

Okay. I heard I don't know. I think this might have been a story Larry told me many years ago. I was wondering if he knew like what the truth of this was, but like he I think he was saying somebody had proposed like something about like some ship or I don't know if it's like an aircraft carrier or or or something but they was they're like yeah you know like there's this opportunity to buy this like ship and then like it was the idea of like like Burning Man at sea or or something. But I mean Larry was kind of like interesting you know but you know uh

I hadn't heard that.

Yeah. I don't know. I think it was like early 2000s or something.

Yeah.

But like Yeah. Burning Cruz like

I don't know about that.

Well, I have to say, of course, thanks Larry. Every day I say thanks Larry because Larry helped me realize that I was a better curator than maker of art and freed me from the feeling that I have to make art. What am I going to do

to oh I can help other people make their art. So for me it was like me turned into we which is so much better. than I think just being self-absorbed in your own thing. So I suddenly became absorbed in other people's art and helping promote it, helping them get grants and build their art and it was so so satisfying to me. And I feel like, you know, because of Valyri, I've had this fabulous 25 year career in service to a big global creative community. I've worked with artists from all over the world. I'm in touch with many of them. I've traveled to visit them. Most of the people in my life, of course, came to me because of Burning Man. Not all of them, but

you know, when you're involved in the you know and you're really in it and as a staff member for years of course a lot of your friends are burners and you meet a lot of people there that are very interesting.

So you've retired from

working with the organization and stuff but I mean is this

I mean is your retirement just going to be pulling weeds or

apparently no I you know I've been retired for about a year now and

yeah what's next for you I thought Ellen I'm retired now I did all that stuff I'm just going to garden and read books all day. And then I thought, no, maybe maybe that's not enough. So, I'm probably I'm looking into volunteering at the Pedaluma Arts Center. And there's another group up the road, the Sonoma Wildlife Rescue. They take volunteers. And that animal rescue stuff interests me a lot. And there's another group in Paluma that works with street with prisoners and uh overlook populations making public art and stuff. So, I'm checking into all that stuff. Then other days, I feel like, no, I don't want to volunteer for anything. I just want to pull weeds. You might keep your toe in the water with like the Bernie man like art world or

in a way. Yeah. Like they just they have these tees high tees every other Thursday which is really fun. It's at 5:00 and they have delicious food that Mel provides who's the office manager. Coyote's wife. She's the best manager we've ever had. She's she's really great. She's has all this great food all the time and she really takes care of everybody.

So I went to the tea that on Thursday with Betto, my husband because Terry Pratt was speaking who's the profiles and dust filmmaker and he's a good friend of ours and we've visited him a few times and quite fond of him. So we drove into the city for that. So that was fun and you know I'll keep going in for the tease occasionally or if there's special events and they had a really wonderful party for me, my farewell party. My god was that overwhelming. Was really good. And I had a nice friend there who who videotaped the whole thing and took photos and that was really very Very nice

because that was the first 25 year staff member to leave because the only other people that have been around that long are Willen Crimson, Mary and Harley, Danger Ranger and they don't really work at the office anymore. They're kind of semi-retired.

Yeah, I guess the only one in it.

Yeah, Andy is she's quite active.

Yeah, but she sort of came and went. Well, now she's back.

Yeah, she was gone for a while and then she came back, but I've known her for, you know, 30 years or something. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this kind of naturally gets to our last question. Uh, Bernie man's impact and influence on your life.

Oh my god.

No, I don't know what the hell else I would have done if I hadn't worked for Bernie man for 25 years. I was I'd stopped making art. I was making jewelry. I had a small business. Was in the street artist program, but I didn't like the business because I had to make multiples of the same thing. And I just like making one of a kind goofy stuff and pretty big and weird and probably I had to tone my stuff down a lot to have it.

Well, when you said you moved from New York to San Francisco and you met Miss P and then she introduced you like that I mean was that pretty much like your circle of friends?

Yeah, it was. I had a few other friends but then because of Bernie man and PE and peace gatherings that those people all became my community and then even more so when I started working for them. So I would say yeah like almost everybody in my life in San Francisco came to me through Burning Man. A few others Not so much, but definitely Burning Man. Well, the interesting thing for me was like in New York, I didn't have a community. There's very little sense of community there. You know, there were other artists working, but everybody's kind of doing their own thing and nothing like this community. So, suddenly, it was Larry's vision that we would have solid community, and that's what people in American culture lack, which is true. Unless you grow up in a small town and you stay there, yeah, then you have a great sense of community. But where do you know people typically go to college, move to the city, get a job, and then who's your community? It's not your co-workers. They're just people you work with. Maybe if you're a Christian and you go to church, that's that's community for sure. But, you know, that was hilarious thing. Otherwise, where do we get community? And that's why he started Burning Man because he wanted to create community and he certainly did. So, for me, it was great. It's like, oh my god, I know all these people and they all know me and they know what I'm up to and I know what they're up to. I never had that in New York. No,

you live in New York, you know, 30, 40 years, you'll have some sort of little community. But and that the Burning Man community in New York now has created a community there too. So that's pretty interesting. But yeah, that I mean that is a classic problem in American culture, I think. Not in small towns, but in cities. It's like where do you get community?

Yeah. Well, I mean you must I don't know if you're familiar with the the Robert Putnham, you know, Bowling Alone.

Oh, yes. That was a big influence on Larry. Bowling Alone.

Oh, yeah.

Big in

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, the whole concept of like the social capital. Um, it's funny cuz before Bowling Alone even came out because I I met my my my now wife um we went to school at University of Vermont in in Burlington, Vermont

and um I think it was like in the winter of like 93 or 94 or something. My my wife was like back then was my girlfriend. But she's like, "Oh yeah, there's this this lecturer from is it from Harvard or something? like you know it's just like it was like a small little lecture and and I don't know there's only like eight people and we went to it and and he was talking about was like this book he was writing about social capital and it was Robert Putnham.

Yeah. And I remember like that was the first time hearing about that and was like this is really interesting you know and then I remember like when the book came out and you could read and then and in between then like Bryman kind of h went to Bry and then that sort of happened. I was like yeah so I think like in my own separate way that just kind of got like all just kind of intertwined, you know, and the whole thinking and and for me, you know, but yeah, it was just interesting like that Larry was like that was such a big inspiration for him, too.

Did he ever meet,

pardon?

Did he ever meet Robert Putnham or

I'm not sure if he did that. I don't know. But it is true like in in in American culture, you know, the the lack of community cities is a problem. And Larry thought up a good way to deal with it. Very interesting what he's, you know, who I'm sure he had no idea back in 95 that some, you know, Burning Man would eventually have 80,000 people every year and we'd have, you know, uh, regional groups on six continents and 100 regional events. And

yeah,

yeah, it really got bigger than he expected.

Maybe he was just thinking like, I just want to have this bonfire in the beach and maybe make a couple of new friends.

Well, it's true. You will make friends. You know, if you go to Burning Man, you'll definitely make new friends with people. And like I say, you know, yeah, it's changed, but you can the original stuff is still there. There's just another bunch of other stuff on top of it. And you know, pop culture takes over everything eventually, and it's just how it works. So,

and it is 40 years old. So,

yeah,

forget that. But I really I think Larry was correct to say that the future of Birmingham is the regionals. And people love them. We we went to Unscrews once and just the small scale of it is really nice.

Yeah.

And the fact desert.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of it is it's people say it's like, "Oh, it's like Burning Man like back in the day." Or they're just like, "Oh, if you want like Brying Man like in 193 or whatever, you know, like

a lot of it is scale." Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you'll you'll still um be around you still might haunt the playa here or there or maybe a regional event.

No, I'm I mean I'm like I said I'm still volunteering doing some of the work I did at part-time as the archavist and

yeah I certainly go to decompression and maybe unscrews again. Thank you for mentioning that unscrews Facebook thing and look at that right after we finish here.

I thought the tickets were out and that was it and we'd never go

but I like that one.

Yeah. All right. Um

so you said this is for what is it called? Shadows of the man.

Uh the show is called the Shadow of the Man. Yeah.

So, can I listen to the show when you actually broadcast it?

Oh, sure. Yeah. So, this episode,

you probably don't know when.

No, I have my little spreadsheet here.

Oh, of course you do.

So, you're going to be May 18th.

Oh, good to know.

Yeah.

So, you're just going to take quotes from what I said and you said, and you edit the whole thing, I guess.

Honestly, I'm super lazy. I I try not to do any editing at all.

Okay, good. So, whatever I said is going to be up there.

Yeah. Yeah. I just kind of cut and paste it, but um

Monday, May 18th, is that

Yeah. Yeah. I'll let you know like before it comes out.

Let's be in touch.

All right. Well, we reached about

When is your show on?

Oh, it's just like it's a podcast, so it just kind of comes on. You just kind of subscribe to it. I'll send you the the link.

All right. Well, um thank you for the interview,

by the way. Um This should not be on the interview. So,

well, hold on. Well, we can talk a little bit afterwards, but

So, thank you so much for the interview.

Absolutely.

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