How Burning Man Works

that everybody else you can't hear. Would you or would you not ever attend Burning Man? No? No, I mean it sounds awesome, and like, I think it's pretty cool that the people who go there having a good time. But man, not for me either. I don't. I don't. Yeah, I like looking at pictures. Yeah, it seems like a fun time. It seems like it would be a really need experience, but actually going in in reality. Now, thanks for begetting that out of the way. I was just curious.

I'll use one of my father's old lines, I wouldn't go to Burning Man if it was in my backyard. Oh really? He well, not Burning Man, but he that used to be I wouldn't see I wouldn't see so and so play if they're in my backyard. So but that's almost like like you despise that. It sounds like you wouldn't go to Burning Man just because. Oh no, I don't despise it. I was just kidding, right, it's you know, it's a very interesting thing and I'm excited

to talk about it. Well, let's talk about it, Chuck. If you have been living under a rock for the past like fifteen or so years, since it's become a thing, um, we'll tell you what Burning Man is. It's a week long festival. It's held out in the desert, the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. Black Rock City. They create and their very own city, right, and it is like a planned city out in the desert. It's a small city.

It's meant to be temporary because, as we'll see, everything that isn't taken down at Burning Man ends up burning and carried out. Right, everything that's not taken down it is burned. And that that's one of the tenants. We'll get to the tenants. Oh yeah, the principles, right, yeah,

the prince of the ten principles. But just like if you are a burner, that's what they're called, and you go to Burning Man and you're just there for the week, the festival, the fun um, and you get there, there's a city, and you leave and there's a city, And if you went a month on either side, there would be nothing there because there's a group of volunteers who works as part of the Burning Man festival who go and build the city and then take it down. Because

it's what you're saying. One of the tenants, one of the ten principles is leave no trace. That's right. So when they leave, there's allegedly not a trace that they were ever there. I want to test that in this ancient lake bed in Arroyo. Yeah. It's uh. It is August September three this year, and this year's art theme of an art theme every year is a cargo cult. Yeah,

which is pretty interesting. I think so. UM two thousand ten, its Metropolis two thousand nine was evolution before that American Dream, Hope and Fear the Green Man. They just have different art themes and Um. One of the things you can do there as a burner is build, uh, either create your own theme. UM group and experience like a camp, like a group, Yeah, like a theme camp, which can be anything. I mean, did you look at some of

the theme camps. It's all over the map. Or and or create your own big public work of art that is under that main theme. And while you're out there, you're gonna need a place to live. And a lot of people make art out of that. I mean really cool stuff, right, Like I'm not easily impressed. But when we look at some of these Burning Man um I want to say phibits, but art pieces, and it's just mind blowing how involved these things are that these people

carry in and a symbol from all over the world. Yeah, and like you said, the theme that's that's given out a cheer is meant to kind of unite all these pieces of art into something some common thread. Yet, but I'm sure you can just do whatever you want. It is Burning Man. After it's very strict. If you show up with any art that doesn't fall within the prescribed guidelines, they will turn you away. No, And you make that joke because Burning Man is very much known for its

anything goes atmosphere. It wasn't until two thousand and four that there were ten principles that became official. Um, and this thing started in nine I think six. Yeah, let's get let's go back, let's go way back. San Francisco. At was it Baker Beach? Um, a group of friends burned in eight foot tall man made out of wood as an effigy. Um. The founder and the first dude to do that was what was his name, Harvey Milk. No,

his name was Larry Harvey. Larry Harvey was close. He supposedly got the idea from this other friend of his, this woman who had burned things in effigy on that beach before. Um. I think that's where he supposedly got the idea. It was not from the movie The Wicker Man. He said, Yeah, a lot of people made that comparison. And he's like, no, you guys are way off. And they're like, and have you seen the dreamwork? Yeah? Exactly, Yeah,

the original was pretty neat. Yeah, bizarre. Um. So they burned this eight foot tall man and uh come of through a little party. And then the next year that became a larger man, and a few more people and a few more until ah, it became so large that San Francisco said, you can't be burning things that large on this beach. They said, fine, we'll go take it to the high desert. Well, apparently Larry Harvey was like, fine, we won't burn it, but we're gonna Can we keep

this thing up? And and uh, this is the year that like people showed up because the San Francisco Cacophony Society, which grew out of the Suicide Club, which is pretty cool in and of itself, put it in the newsletter that this thing was going on. So a bunch of people showed up. Larry Harvey said that, um, okay, we won't burn this thing, but we're gonna leave it up and we'll just take it down. And everybody's like, whoa, no,

we gotta burn it. So at the end of that one, they disassembled it and decided that they would go burn it in the desert. That's right. And I looked to see if there was an original symbol symbolic uh, you know, moved behind this, and I don't think there was other than he just called it an act of radical self expression,

which I don't think it represented anything. That's one of the tenants the principles, that's right, But it wasn't like he's the man keeping us down and we're burning him, right exactly, although it definitely has become that in a lot of sense, not necessarily the Burning Man, but other stuff that's burned at Burning Man. UM. That was right, Uh, yeah, started in eighty six and then nine when I think they moved desert. Yeah, they went to burn it at

the end of eighty nine to end the festival. In eighty nine and the ninety the whole thing began and ended in the desert, and Um it became very much this thing where it's a there are very few rules, no laws. Some people refer to it as a temporary autonomous zone. Basically it is a little town, like we've said, that is just totally left alone by the authorities. The the org, which is the group that runs the Burning

Man festival. UM deals with the Bureau of Land Management, and the BLM is like, okay, you guys, just don't mess this place up, and we'll let you do, and we're gonna leave you alone. And they're left alone and everybody goes in. They form UM this social experiment, which is a a a city, a place, a group of culture without consumerism or commodification. Yeah, no consumerism, no buying and selling of things. No. Uh, I mean it's not

a music festival. Although there is music there, like lots of like DJ parties and stuff, but it's not like Lollapaloosa or something or fall. There's nobody who's supposed to be making money off of this, Yeah, for profit. The only thing that really costs money is ice. Yeah, and a few other things. But there supposedly is no cash transactions between burners. Right, well, hold on before we go any further, Chuck, It seems like it's a good time

for a message. CNN presenting Morgan Spurlock Inside Man, a new original series, Sunday Night, ten Eastern and Pacific on CNN. So, uh, okay, where were we? We were in the desert. This thing is growing from and if you look at year by year, it's like eight hundred, than two thousand, than four thousand, than six, than ten, then fifteen, and it literally just kind of crept up like that up to the point now where I believe they're actually capping it at fifty

and they're selling tickets and it's now selling out. Yeah. The first time it ever sold out was in two thousand eleven, and they have it set up first of all so that you can't scout like you are allowed to per credit card. Okay, but that apparently it's just led to people like having a bunch of people call with their credit cards and keeping all of them for themselves. They also have it on a sliding scale, so if you are buying early, you pay more. So I think

it's like six fifty bucks for a ticket. That's the opposite of how things you like that usually work, right, usually the early purchase of the cheaper ones and it gets more expensive. This does the exact opposite. It's a little weird. They get um cheaper and cheaper as it comes. And apparently they're also work all low income tickets which

are half price of the lowest normal price. And then apparently a lot of times if you show up there will be scalpers there, but they're selling the tickets for less than face value, sometimes half of the lowest price, just to fit that. Uh yeah, that's kind of cool. And um, I'm sure people give away a ticket here

or there. Uh, but it's gotten to the point now now that it's sold out officially fifty tickets I think or um, now it's like different, like you have to buy a ticket you can't just show up because you might drive through hundred fifty miles from San Francisco and then be like, we can't let you in. Sorry, Yeah, there's the rules. Uh, there is rules. There aren't many

rules aside from that though. Um, like you said, it's kind of anything goes everything from sex clubs two people setting up their own bars, to filmmakers and artists and performance artists, and I mean it's really anything goes um And one of the things that they try to get people to do is take a little piece of that attitude back home with them. You know that it's this

for a lot of people. I imagine there's a lot of There's some people who are true devotes of Burning Man and this Burning Man philosophy and like there they go set up the city and like they maintain the website you're around. There's others who are like new, There's some who are like there, but there are they're still bringing in a lot of the hang ups from the outside world, and like sure they have dreads, but they're also like real gossipy or whatever, and there's like just

normal joes. A lot of a lot of d i y makers love going to Burning Man because like you're out there in the desert and like you better build yourself a shade structure where else you're going to burn. Um,

there's just a lot of hands on building. Um. So there's a lot of normal people with normal jobs who use a week of their vacation to go out to the desert and just totally cut loose and like you're saying, yeah, like you're saying, part of the hope is that all of the stuff that happens here and just relaxing and forgetting about like having to spend money on something or you know, like sharing your food with somebody you've never met, All of this stuff is meant to be carried out

into the rest of your life the other fifty one weeks a year is the author of the article puts it. Yeah, like I just I just gave away my last bit of food, but uh, God gave me three hits of acid, And I just had sex with four strangers, right and I haven't worn't close for the last three days and we all smell and it's great. Yeah. Now, there's certain aspects of it you probably shouldn't bring back into your normal life, Like going to work naked is a bad

idea under almost all circumstances. Um. But the mindset, the philosophy behind it just kind of like, uh, like none of this matters as much as a lot of people put stock into it. Agreed. So black Rock City itself, if you have ever, it's not just a big mass of tents um. It is actually has a design. If you look at photos of Burning Man from above, it is a big cum Oh yeah, yeah you have You never seen the aerial shop. I don't know it should be a b sure or him. Uh And it is

a big ce with um. The burning Man they just call him. The man is at the center, of course, and supposedly you can. They have him up on a big pedestal now like fifty high, and it varies every year, but he's generally with the pedestal about a hundred feet high, so you can see him from from anywhere in the camp. Uh. And I think this year, because the cargo cold, they're building him on top of like this flying saucer. Oh really structure, that's what the pavilion is meant to look like. Cool. Yeah,

it's in the hopes that aliens. Oh yeah, well it looks a lot like a crop circle. It looks very much like a crop circle um or half finished crops circle, lazy crops circle. The organ is saying on the Burning Man website that they hope that they're sure that this pavilion will attract lots of aliens, and they hope that it will stimulate our planets faltering economy, which I've read a bunch of times and I said, like, surely this is a joke and it maybe it was lost. I mean, no,

the economy things. They're hoping that our planets economy will be stimulated by Burning Man attracting aliens if you take take the whole alien part out, the fact that Burning Man is considered with our planets economy being stimulated. There's this really interesting interview um on a website called Public Books. It's an interview with T. J. Jackson Lear's uh, and

it's called The Confidence Economy. I recommend everybody go read it because he's talking about how everything has transitioned to economics now, like as he puts it, like it went from like all of our moral ideals went from the religious to the cultural and now to the economic. And so the idea of risk, this existential idea that like

we're in danger. There's danger out there and by doing certain things or avoiding certain things where we're um, we're going into an avoiding risk has now been melted down to a number on a banker's computer. Like that's what risk is to us. Now everything is economics. And like seeing that on their website like really kind of brought that home. That's that was my little thing on that.

Have you do you watch a veep? No, it's the White House Show, um comedy And one of the guys, the new characters this year is uh Gary what's his face from office face? Yeah, um, Gary Cole, And he's the numbers guy and it's just sort of straight along those lines. All he does is talk numbers and that's that's his whole entire job and the staff's entire job. That's how we've become as a culture. Everything is economic space.

Now that's kind of sad. It is. Um So back to black Rock City where where numbers don't count, Um it is, and it is uh it is, like you said, like a city. They have their eye store, obviously, have recycling and volunteering and medical facilities and information facilities and shuttles. Although one of the rules is you cannot drive on the playa. That's what they call it. Um, that's why there's a lot of bikes. Biking seems to be the

best way to get around. Apparently you can get a permit from the city, the nearby city that that Plia falls under, I guess at the same county. So you can't because there's art cars out there. But well you're not allowed to drive where the people are though. Um, oh yeah, there's like motor homes that is what most people stay in. But like once you get there, you like take the keys out and burn them. Um, and then at the end of the week you're like, man,

I just burn my keys. That was self expression, true, But um, there are no fires directly on the ground because that leaves a burn scar on the gentle high desert. Um, so they have to I guess have like fire pits and stuff. And I guess we could get into the core principles right. Well, yeah, we've been kind of dancing around him a little bit. You said leave no trace. That's a big one. Um. Radical self expression yeah, radical inclusion, yeah,

radical self reliance and radical self expression. Those are the three radicals, right where so you can't just be like Um, like, hey man, I forgot to bring some water. Radical self inclusion or radical inclusion and they can be like radical self reliance jerk. Yeah, although gifting, it's a big one. Is a big one. Um. There, it is very much about giving things without it says gift thing does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

So it's not about trading even it's about giving. Right, I will give you her pies. You don't have to give me anything back. You mentioned the commodification. No, uh, commercial sponsorships or anything like that. Yeah, Like that's why I wouldn't be a music festival. It's too commercialized. Exactly, communal effort. It's all about collaborating. Hey man, I'm out of amount of nails for my big giant alien I'm building out of wood. Don't worry, man, I got nails.

I got your back. Right, we'll just disassembled my giant alien out of wood and use the nails. From the civic responsibility, Um, we value the civil society. Community members who organize events assume responsibility for public welfare. Um that's a little tricky. I wonder what the law says about that. Well, that's what I'm saying, like, like, what if someone got really hurt in someone's steam camp. I don't know, you know,

I genuinely don't know. It says that the events have to be in accordance with the local laws, but they clearly break those a lot. You know, Yeah, there's a lot of laws broken at a burning Man, but they don't have their own laws, so technically there's no laws broken. And then the last two are participation and UM immediacy and the immediate experience is in many ways the most important touchdown of the culture is what they say. I

like that participations in there. You can't just be like just some dude hanging out in the background, like staring at everybody that they want you to get involved, not only for your benefit, because you know, no one wants to be stared at while they're nude and on acid. It's a bump trip. Well, while we're on that, we should say that burning man is in certain areas are in X rated UM and they try to put up

signage to indicate because there are families that go. I don't think there's a lot of families that go, but there are, and they try to indicate like, hey, this as a group sex camp. There's a newdist camp. Um, can't you read the sign? Yeah? Um, but keep your

kids away. You might want to, though, is the recommendation, Like, if you're not super open minded, or if you are easily offended, or if you don't want to permanently damage your kids, or if you want to be a good parent, Yeah, then don't take your family, or you may not want to go at all. Like you really need to know what you're getting into here, folks, Yeah, because you're going to be thrust right into the center of a like fifty thousand people who all came to like party, big

part of it. Like you can call it a social experiment, you can call it like, um, you know, performance art, and it is all those things, but it's also people partying all the time for like a week. Um, there's a lot of drugs and alcohol involved, yeah, and you know everything else. So if you're you know, not cool with that, then I would imagine Bernie Man would be a really bad place for you to go spend a week. Yeah.

But if if you don't know that, and if you bought a ticket and made your way out there and you don't know that at that point, then you almost say you should go, Well, just I want to see that, dude. I think Julia Layton writes that, like, you don't have to go for a week, Like, if you're thinking about it, go test it out for a few days. Yeah, that that's what I would do. There's no way I would go for a week. And I don't think they sell

any ticket other than for a week. So if you decide that you're gonna have like what, I really like this, I really like partying every single day, Like I'll stay the whole week. You can stay because you got your ticket. Um. And on the sex note, uh, there have been reports of sexual assaults and even a rape. Um. It is clearly not the Uh it's opposite of everything that Burning

Man stands for. But there are always bad apples, and I think the general consensus is some dumb dudes show up thinking like, hey, it's just sex fest because everyone's free love, free love of you need to go to Sandals for that exactly. It's not really the case, like that stuff does happen, but it's just like it would

happen in the real world. I mean, maybe people are a little more like loose with their morals, but there you know, been reports of like a woman like dancing nude and then guys like kind of descending on her, Like that's not okay, right, Just because it's Burning Man doesn't mean she's inviting you to touch her, you know

what I'm saying exactly, And that raises a really excellent point. Like, um, Larry Harvey like from the beginnings has said like this is this is a social experiment, And I wonder what he was thinking it was going to be, because surely he's found that any utopia you create will eventually become poisoned by humans who go and take part in it. And I think it got I mean it grew way way, way bigger than they ever thought it would, which generally

when the problems come, they've still capt it. Ah, there's still people who like can't go, so like they're not capping in it, like or one thousand, they chose fifty. Um, So you know, I wonder like what they expected or what they're seeing, the people who are like really a part of the Burning Man org what they're seeing that um that surprised them, or that they were like I knew this would happen. Yeah, I imagine ticket sales, I mean,

if it's six hundred bucks a ticket. I know there's lower ones, but that's like thirty million bucks supposedly not for profit. Yeah, and I know they recently lumber. Lumber is extremely expensive. I know they transferred the holding to a different company recently. And there was like a a big battle between the original founders because money got involved, and I think the the original guy got kind of upset because people wanted to get paid that were on

the board more money. Larry Harvey. Yeah, because there was another guy named Jerry James who has attributed as one of the founders with Larry Harvey. And what was he upset about? The financial I hadn't heard anything about that. Yeah, I think they. I should look this up more. They transferred it to a new company, um ah, burning Man Production LLC or something like a new nonprofit. I'm not sure how it all shook out, but I think some people cashed out that we're on the original board is

how it went down. Hope, I didn't get that wrong. So let's say you want to go you're down with all this. You're like, sure, I'll get my sun screen out and put it in all the right places and take my clothes off, shave my head, paint myself green. Apparently that's futile because everybody gets covered in dust and turns gray. Really yeah, gross, isn't that weird? So the sunscreen just gets covered and I guess, and everybody turns into like this new race of people that have gray scan.

I can't imagine anything more uncomfortable. Um, but let's say you do want to go. Uh, you've bought your ticket, Bring your sunscreen, bring your water. Lots of water. Yeah, you want to bring a gallon of water per day per person, at least just for drinking, plus another half gallon for like bathing and washing your clothes. If you're into that kind of thing. Um me, you need to bring more than that. Yeah, that's wheat out that gallon

of water by noon. Yeah, And I mean, like that's serious stuff because they don't give you water at burning man, Like you might find some nice soul to do it, but like there, you should not come expecting them to give you water. That's right. Uh, it gets cold at night in the desert. If you've never been there, it's kind of interesting. It could be like a forty degree temperature swing. Then the course of a day to a night, so you gotta bring your warm clothes as well. You

might not have someone to snuggle up to it. Burning Man, you know, I can't count on that. Um. And you can't just make a fire just anywhere either. You can't make a fire just anywhere. And you need to bring your own lights to um. They're obviously your lights everywhere, but you want your little flashlight in your head lamp and all like good stuff. Yeah, because it gets dark, gets really dark. And apparently people put our installations wherever

they want. Yeah, and you may trip over them because a lot of those into Latians have rebar most of them do it there. Uh. And then um, you need to be able to be highly adaptable because, like you said, you might have a plan in place, but burning Man, you never know what's gonna go on, so you gotta be able to just kind of roll with it. That's

sort of the idea. You know, if you're a rigid individual, you don't want to go to Burning Man, you're not gonna have a very good time, or your um will will break and you'll be like, Okay, I'm ready to just kind of let let things fly. That's true. I just watched that documentary on the Source Family. Have you heard of that one? They were a oh yeah, cult in the seventies and al I've read an article on

them four Good Times. Yeah, it's very interesting. A lot of people they in fact, almost everyone they interviewed from today wasn't like, yeah, this was some bad cult. They were like they were still sort of living that life. Well, it's like paradise lost. They all moved down to Mexico and lived on the each and like were swimming or I thought it was Mexico. Now they were in l A. And they eventually went to Hawaii and that was kind

of the end of them. And then so the leader had like a bad trip on the beach and then everything turned dark from that point on, right, And I think you're thinking something else, No, the Process Church. No, okay, I'm talking about the Process Now. This is the Source Family. I've heard of them. I don't know anything about them. Yeah, it's a new documentary. It's interesting. Okay, what's it called the Source Family? Okay, well, I'll watch that. You read

the article in the forty Times about the Process. Was that the seventies too, It was like late sixties, early seventies. Man, those there were cults all over the place. All you had to be was like a halfway likable person with a steady supply of acid and like pretty much that's your own call. This guy was he was like six six and had this big gray beer and they're like

you were the father, right, and he's like, I know. Yeah. Well, in their tenants, the first thing they had to do every morning was inhale six seconds from the the sacred Herb. So basically just get everyone stoned very first thing in the morning, wake and bake is what they call that. Yeah, but they're also a band. It's really interesting, this weird psychedelic music and stuff still around at the time. Well that the some of the surviving members have gotten back

together now and are playing again. Maybe that's what I've heard of, is the band the source. I didn't realize they were a cult too. Yeah, they were cult first and foremost. It's like the Polyphonic Spree. It's exactly like who they ended up, sort of emulating White Robes and the whole deal. All right, that's a sidebar, but in the spirit of burning Man. You know, my buddy Toby, he was in the Spree. Yeah, he's like a tambourine player. No, he taught himself to play the thereman. Oh really. Yeah.

He is the producer of a movie that's coming out in July or August with Rooney Mara and Casey Athlete called Embodied Saints. Yeah, I've heard of that. It's he's a producer of good for him. And yeah, he's been making his way through Hollywood, just like on like Sheer Grit. Yeah, and he if you're interested in Bonnie Prince billy fan, he did a producer a short film called Pioneer starring

Bonnie principally that was really really good. Yeah, him and his collaborator David Lowry, two of them collaborat and make some good stuff. Way to go, guy, Not David Lowry from Cracker and Cambra Vanbethowin. No, no different guy. Yes, all right, okay, Well, if you want to learn more about Burning Man, go to Burning Man. You can also visit the Burning Man site, or you can check out our article on how Stuff works dot com. Just type

burning Man in the search bar. Uh. And since I said search bar, it's time again for a message bar. And now it's time for listener mail. Did we even say that they burned the man at the end. That's the whole point. They burned the man on the last night. Oh wow, okay, so let's keep it going for a second.

By the way, they burned the man on the last night the end, which is neat And I was thinking about this, like they have the man, so anywhere in camp you can see this giant man, and that I think has to really kind of add something like this week is gonna end. This man is going to die. Yeah, he We're going to burn him, and then after that this week is over and then we're all going to die eventually. Like just affect that the man and what everybody knows is going to happen to the man is

looming over everybody the whole week. Like what effect does that have on you? Dude? You should go to Burning Man start a theme camp. Yeah, you know, like let's just talk about what we're gonna do to that poor man. Okay, I'd go. So that's the official end of the Burning Man episode. Now that's right. Now it's time for listener mail. That's right. I'm gonna call this, uh sort of a

correction on the correction. Remember when we got the email about the American Red Cross denying uh men who have sex with men MSM to be able to get blood. This sort of explains that old more thoroughly guys have been catching up on stuff you should know. And after hearing the April ninth Platypus episode at to race Holmes to respond. Uh. Penelope was correct when she wrote that

the American Red Cross permanently differs or turns away MSM donors. Um. It was incorrect over to describe this as a Red Cross policy and origin policy was determined by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, not the Red Cross. The Red Cross is called the FDA ban medically and scientifically unwarranted even and seeks policy change because the FDA ban needlessly excludes healthy donors. I think we came down the Red Cross a little bit, so it really the FDA were

mad at exactly. Uh. Please let your listeners know that's not the American Red Cross which is discriminating, but U S. F d A. The Red Cross is obligated by law to it here to the ban until the FDA can be convinced to change it. I have met some people who, though they are eligible to give blood, refused to donate because they object to the FDA ban the well intentioned, This refuse will only hurt people who need life saving blood. There are always better ways to pressure the FDA to

change its policy. Um, big government, Am I right? Yeah? In the meantime, I hope everyone who's able to donate blood, platelets and other blood products will continue to do so. Cheers, Cat, nice, Thanks a lot, Cat. Yeah, I feel bad that we've got that wrong, or that we were misled by Penelope. Maybe Penelope didn't know herself. Now everybody knows it's the FDA's fault. That's right, So FDA change it. What's your problem? And then if someone from the FDA is getting right,

so you know, you know it really is Glyndon Johnson's fall. Uh. If you want to lay something at the feet of somebody else, we want to know about that, especially if it clears something up that we got wrong. You can tweak to us at s Y s K podcast, join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email The Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and as always, joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot Com

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