My Burning Man - Jesse

The first year you went to Berningman where you just did you build something that year?

Or no, the first year I went, I was kind of chorused that you have to be coorse, at least in the old days, you have to be chorus because like you can't. You don't really know what it's like. There's no videos that you have, like a couple's like film photos.

You're like, I don't sex and drugs and just all kinds of debauchery. It sounds terrible.

Pashash show, Welcome to Toss Show, How are my Toshikole's doing?

Yeah? Want you hit me with some of that selling Sunset Free Library hip hop club music? That show the music and the b roll and then the wardrobe. It's kind of like this show. You look at this outfit and you're like, oh, okay, I couldn't wear that, but somehow when I see it on an A list star it looks amazing. How you doing, Eddie?

Doing good?

How are you you care about your wardrobe? Nope, Ah, that's a shame. That's a shame, Eddie. It's really a great way to express yourself if you have tons of extra money. Hey, I heard Eddie that last week's guest really lit up the comment boards.

Well, it's got some really strong opinions about Jacqueline.

People were just dying to let me know what they thought of Jacqueline the billionaire travel agent. Well, she's not a billionaire, but she's a travel agent four billionaires allegedly. What they have to say, let's hear.

Ed that was absolutely fascinating and horrific at the same time.

Exactly. You know people that I find interesting on the show, they don't have to be likable. I'm not saying that this was the case, but I still find them interesting.

She might be one of the most despicable people I've listened to. I love every second of it.

Be sure to like and subscribe.

Having this lady on definitely makes him look more in touch by comparison.

And for the record, I am one thousand times richer than she is.

I listened to the audio version first and came here to see what she looks like. She looks exactly how she sounds.

I want to thank you for streaming us on two platforms. That money will go right back into the show after everyone takes their cut.

She's like a copy of Elizabeth Holmes.

Yeah, if Elizabeth Holmes and Elaine Maxwell had a baby.

Oh really down to earth check very natural as well. I forgot humble. If there's a heaven, She's indefinitely.

Salt of the earth. Salt of the earth, well said comment her.

Broad saved herself when she said she almost always shits herself.

No matter what our political or economic differences are, we all have one thing in common. Everyone poops themselves occasionally yearly.

Best part of waking up is Folgers in your butt?

Is Folgers a sponsor? Folgers? You want to do the right thing.

I love Korea. I go for the facials and shopping, so North Korea would be incredible. Yep, that's how that works.

Maybe she was joking. I don't know. She likes North Korea, she loves China, and she loves Russia. There's a pattern.

She's still kind of hot.

I kind of agree. That's the type of woman I would end up having an affair with.

Ah glad I stayed for the free plug. At least that was hilarious.

But what's not hilarious is bowling bullying. I just hope this enthusiasm carries over to this week's guest, which, by the way, if you're wondering why I'm dressed so fly, It's because we're about to head over to the Plaia. Enjoy Pasha, my guest today, enjoys roughing it in the desert every year while installing beautiful, massive but temporary art installations that I personally will never see because spending a week in the middle of nowhere without ac and running

I knew this question was coming, and still it hits me. The answer is gonna be no, okay, but only because I'm thinking of like the Alec Baldwin Gina Davis version, like bed sheets. My reference is hitting you or note but that versions no. But I think there's some like spiritual something going on.

So I'm gonna put you down for you believe in ghosts. We'll see you're from Miami Beach. Talk about the cocaine.

So I was there during the Miami Vice era. I will say that, but I was a kid and wasn't super privy to it. Our house was actually scouted as a potential shoot location from Miami Vice. So it gives you a sense of when I was there with the cigarette boats and the.

And it gives me a sense of the decor.

Yeah, it's changed quite a bit now it's fake Italy. It was like Neon and that sort of thing.

Do you enjoy going back to Florida? It's not my place? No, No.

I got the fuck out of there as soon as I could, and especially growing up, it was like people retiring there, and I liked the piece of it. But then when I was in high school, it became like clubbing, modeling, that whole thing, and I was.

Like this a little much for me. Did you partake in drugs back then? Not then? No, I was like sixteen, No, I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't cool. But that would imply that doing the.

Drugs with school, Well I understand what. I wasn't part of that crowd. I was like, you know, a nerd. And then I found a place where it was like more cool to be a nerd, which is a little bit like California, and.

That should be on our billboards to stop them here to be a nerd. Yeah, it's cool to be a nerd in California. You went to Tufts University in Boston, and then you got your masters at Stanford. Just a huge overachiever. Go by the way, the third person on this show to have gone to Stanford. I'm just pointing that out to our listeners that we get very smart people on this show. Did you enjoy Boston?

It's an interesting place to go to school. Lots of people your age. Boston during the nineties, though, like nothing good to eat, the weather socks like I was coming from Miami, so it's snowing.

Everything's like kind of a drag.

The thing I got out of it mainly though, was I was in a singing group. Again, not cool, but a singing groups. Every weekend we get in a van and go somewhere to go sing so.

And is singing acapella. I love it, I know whatever.

So every we again, so we go to like North Carolina, we go to Mischionan, we go to California.

We literally just like all over the place.

So I spent something like four weekends a year at Tufts and all the rest of it was at another school.

And at some point we went to San Francisco and I.

Was like, oh, this is where the people that were nerds that like made something happened went.

So that was that's where I ended up. Did you ever watch that reality show about the a cappella groups? Yeah? Yeah, it was really a sing off? Was that one of them? And it was one of the boys to men? Guys?

You know the weird thing. I don't like acapella. Oh asually everybody's like, oh, but yeah, dare you You want people to come to your concert?

So I was like, yeah, that's cool.

I like singing, but like I don't if they want to listen, that's that's on them.

What about noises? Do you do the noises or did you do.

I do the mouth noises the face sounds?

You did?

Yeah, well there's no you know, you need like a drum, so you're the drum.

I know, but I didn't know. Usually there was like one guy in there that wasn't the best singer that would do that. Maybe that was me. I don't believe it. Do you miss the Bay Area a little bit?

I missed the food and I missed the like it was like a weird place when I moved there, which I like, And then it became all and again I am aware that I'm the tech community, part of the tech community, but it became all that, like all the art moved to Oakland, and then all the art moved out of Oakland to god knows where, and like that part I don't love.

As an engineer, do you find you know way more than almost everyone that you're dealing with.

No, However, I think I know different things. I see the world in a different way.

Right.

I look at things and I'm like, this microphone thing is like sagging.

They couldn't have designed it that way.

Is the mic too heavy or did they like design it before they anadized it, and then after they anidized it, there wasn't as much friction between these two things, and now it's falling and it was too late to fix it.

So that's what I think about. That might be, that might be the answer. That's I always feel like when I watch people build stuff, I'm like, oh, I could do that better, but I sometimes you can't. I have to like see someone else do it. I don't have the ability to do.

So I think I know different things, right, Like I notice things not people most of the time, like ninety percent of the time, which can be a problem.

All right, explain your engineering background and what exactly some of your jobs entailed, to the best of your ability. I know you have a ton of NDAs that force us to not talk about some of the jobs that you took.

So I'm like a soft engineer. So like my undergrad was half engineering and half psychology. So the whole point being like, you can make a thing, but let's actually pay attention to the person that's going to use it. So I was a recording engineer for a bit at the plant used to be the record plant in Salcelito, because I thought that was a really cool way to combine like engineering and emotion. Then I became an application developer.

How long did you design food? Two and a half years. Talk about the chicken pot pie, Oh, council bluffs where they make them.

I've been in many of the factories where they make peanut butter and chicken pot pies and frozen meals and stuff, and it's some of the cool things you see actually are when the food is real food. You're just making a million amount of time on a huge sheet roller with a big like sheet a dough. But a lot of these things are made the way you would make it at home, except you know, they have to make it to a price point.

What's your job? What did you create?

They basically come to you and say, in some cases, we're kind of out of ideas. We've been making this stuff for three years, five years, thirty years, and we can't make this Waco thing because no one who buys this product line will eat that Waco thing.

Gotcha? What do we do now?

Or they could say this is the one one moment of enjoyment. The person who's gonna eat this is going to have that week. It's literally a treat for them, right, They'll open up that chicken pot pie or that thing, and it's like they'll literally sit there and like that's the home cooked meal they get. And I know it feels a little sad, but for a lot of people,

The chicken pot pie. You know, every time I've had a chicken pot pie, I'll be honest with you, I'm probably in a sad state.

And then I had no idea where you were going with that the chicken pot pie, because I love chicken pot pie.

My favorite birthday meal is at the Old Place. I don't know if you've ever been to this place, but it's a wonderful restaurant if you like a steak. But they also do a chicken pot pie there, and they throw tons of mashed potatoes on top of it, and it is just a shepherd's pie, chicken pop it is. It's a chicken pot pie, but they're just a heaping helping of mashed potatoes on I just love it. You designed US currency at one point, No, I didn't.

I worked at a branding firm that helped redesign that currency.

That avoids my question. Yeah, I want to know how quick you could create counterfeit money? Uh yeah, No, don't know. What's your favorite thing that you've ever designed?

So I worked at a company that makes vaporizers. I worked at Packs. It's a cannabis brand, so I was then in charge of product there. So I developed and launched a few of their vaporizers, which were pretty cool. Because our thing is I forget about the brand. But like the thing is, I want to work on products that people love and cove it and feel good about.

I don't want to work on.

Stuff that's just like the ens is your it is if it's the right one, right, Like it's not going to melt or blow up in your hand. It's like not going to lead stuff. It's made with care. You'd put it on your But the kids, the kids, well, it's not for them.

I always confused Burning Man with Joshua Tree. That's that's weird. I never knew that burning Man where it was. It's north of Reno, one hundred miles, yeah, one hundred miles northeast. Yes, yeah. And it's always.

During what it ends on Labor Days, so it's always at the end of August, beginning of September.

Always first week of college football. Genius school's just getting started. It's about time for a lot of people.

And used, I mean, none of it's practical, so it may as well be then, right, like pick the least practical week.

When was the least practical place? What year was the first year you went? Oh six? Did you know about it when you like as a kid Florida.

Or no, not no, I mean a long time ago, right, so like YouTube hadn't been a thing, Like it's not social media if you have to go before social media. A lot of people don't really know about Burning MANA lists are in San Francisco or around there. So I'd heard about it for a few years, and I was like, this is not for me, Like drugs, no thanks, crowds, no thanks. I don't particularly like camping, like almost all the things about it. If you put in a bullet list, I'm like, that's not for me.

Who owns Burning Man?

It's like a full on company, Oh, I thought, And it was all disappointing answers. Just one dude, there's a magical wizard who lives in the desert.

Is it nonprofit? It's complicated.

I think the part of it is, and part of it Isn't they have a whole thing about that?

I mean, is there somebody overseeing this shit? Shows?

A whole company of like fifty people or something full time, and it's so much work that they start planning the next one before the current one is done, like literally the second Burning Man, the man burns, They've already posted the theme for next year. Is this and because they already had to start planning it. It takes more than a year to plan Burning Man. And you know, it's a huge art grant organization. They give out a million

Have to pay the government a lot of money for the land. The first year you went to burning Man, where you just did you build something that year or no?

The first year I went, I was kind of course that you have to be coarse, at least in the old days. You have to be coarse because like you can't you don't really know what it's like. There's no videos that you have, like a couple's like film photos.

You're like, I don't this thing. There's no sex and drugs and just all kinds of debauchery.

It sounds terrible.

Well, okay, that sounds good, but it's also the other things.

I found a picture actually in some magazine or whatever where it was the first Burning Man. It was like eighty three or eighty four. I was not there, and it's literally like seven people with like a man they're screwing together out of some two by fours, Like it literally looks like if you went with your friends and have like a not great tailgating party on the beach

But you have to buy a ticket. How much is a ticket? It's more and more every year. I think it's almost five hundred bucks. And how long does that ticket last?

The event is a week, So if you buy it and you're not building anything, you're allowed in on Saturday night and you have to leave by like Monday, so it's essentially a week.

But when you're building, you get to go a week earlier.

So the people who are building a big camp or art can show up during build weeks.

So that's a week early.

Because obviously, if you're going to show up for the event, like you can't just say now you can start putting your stuff together, like nothing would be done right, Like you need to give people a head start of a week to assemble their camps that can house one hundred people or a big art. If you're building the temple, which is the biggest art project there. They might get there three four weeks in advance.

Have you ever built the temple now?

And we wouldn't invite it to submit a design for it, but we never b And what is the temple at Burning Man? There's a The biggest art project really is the temple, and it's always at a specific place on

Every year you really feel something and they have to tear it down at the end. Oh, they burn they burn that thing to everything burns to the ground.

The man burns on Saturday, The temple burns on Sunday, and it's a very like somber, like people sit and they're crying because they're letting it be a cathartic.

Well, I usually lead before all that. Anyway. My thing is do you oh yeah, like you don't even stick around and watch people enjoy your art? Oh?

No, I do, but I lead before. My favorite part is build week. I just want to be there and like I like heavy equipment. I want to like operate stuff.

You pre build all year. Yeah.

Yeah, it might take like nine ten months to make the thing, and maybe we partially set it up if we can. We built something that was so big, this big sphere that in retrospect looked exactly like COVID, but we built it two years before COVID. Oh so you started we started COVID. Usual breaking news right here?

Were you always artistic? Though? That word could have been one of two very close where it's you can answer either, Yeah.

My mom's an art teacher. Okay, so we'll go with that one.

Do you get paid for creating your art? There?

You can get a grant, so in that sense, yes, but generally no so at Burning Man in a given year. I mean, I don't work for Burning Man. My understanding is there's like five six hundred art pieces that go every year. Okay, out of that, maybe seventy of them got an art grant, and so you can apply for

You do a kickstarter or whatever. If I were to ask a gun to your head, how much you've spent on Burning the Man in your lifetime with for all your art projects and everything you have any idea where you're at.

Well, the art projects are net positive, So that's a they're all positive, well at.

This point they are, so that that's the beauty.

Like you put in a little of your money, you get an arc rerant, you do a fundraiser, and then you're you're still a little in debt, right, but our thing, the whole goal, the hope for most people is you do it. You show your art, you impact whatever im pack you wanted, and then ideally you sell it or show it somewhere. And I think it's like a little bit of a dream for a lot of people, because

Some percentage of years are they pre sold?

No, no, no, no, No one knows that we put them at Burning Man.

No one knows. We maybe have a reputation at this point a little bit. So now are they like, hey, we want first dibbs. Do you do you have a preference to where it goes? You don't know that.

I think they need to see it first because our stuff is really specific. And so like we built these mushrooms for Burning Man called Truman Lumen, and are those ones that's like the change shape, Yeah, they're a handful that it's gone beautiful, thank you. And so those are the most We had a big debate in the team because we we just.

Started with a poster it or like a little sketch.

We're like, let's make this, and then we made a little hand model and it's like literally just like a paper thing and we're like, yeah, we'll build this. I came up with the name Schremann Luhman. And then a couple people in our group were like, we can't make these because everyone will think it's just a drug reference. No one will, Oh, it's not well, I mean it's.

Art, right, it is whatever you want it to be. But okay, but TheRoom and that'll sell it.

I know, I know we'll never sell it, will never show it, like you're screwed if we build these things. And a couple people thought, oh, that's not true, and then a couple of us were like, no, you're probably right, but let's build it anyway. There's something so delightful about them. And you can see a picture and they look really like kind of cute and whatever. But you watch them and genuinely old people and young people alike, like little todllers will walk up to it and they're just like

And what's the act orgami material.

It's corrugated polypropylene. So it's the same thing they make those mail carrier boxes out of. So it's like a it's like corrugated cardboard, but it's plastic, and we don't love that it's plastic.

But the plastic sheds light.

In a really interesting way, and it's a living hinge, so it can fold over and over and over again. And you know, we spend a gazillion hours basically welding the sheets together because there is no sheet big enough to make those mushrooms out of. So each head of the mushroom is something like a forty foot by twenty five foot sheet. So we have to weld the plastic together, which I didn't know was a thing. We all had to learn how to plastic weld.

How do you plastic weld?

It's like a heat gun with a filler thing, and you literally sit there and like melt the plastic at a very specific rate.

You talk about a hot glue gun.

It's like a hot glue gun, except it puts out air too, okay, And then we fold it.

We weld it into a loop.

And then we fold it and it takes like twelve fourteen people to fold it and that's one mushroom head.

Where did you do all this folding? A lot of this we did at a company we used to work for.

They had a shop we were allowed to use, you know, on weekends and evenings and stuff. But we then had a workshop in San Francisco for a few years. So I bought a forklift, which is like a weird thing to just be like, how do you even choose? You know, it's like you're like, how did my life end up being that I'm buying a fork What brand did you go with? It was a Yale Yale Yale. I don't know if you're a sponsor to this podcast or not, but Yale forklifts.

Oh man, Yeah.

And then we got rid of the workshop. But and I think in the future will probably build stuff in my own workshop.

But it's it's it takes a lot of space. There's no electricity there is there.

No, there's a lot of generators, so there's there's electricity there, but there's no like.

There's no grid.

Oh no, you're in the middle of nowhere, like really nowhere.

And so how's this heavy machinery. Who's bringing this.

In Bernie Man, there's a square block of nothing but cranes, telehandler scissor lifts like to help erect.

All the art. And you can just be like, hey, I need that more or less.

You're you're assigned. If you have an art piece that you've registered, you are assigned a person that helps you. That's from ass Art Support Services. Everything at burning Man has like.

A I can't handle it.

And they can request equipment from HEAT, which is heavy equipment and transportation, and be like, oh, I need a crank because I need a lift to happen. And the lift is whatever you call them. It's it's three thousand pounds. We're gonna live from here. We're gonna do that and then they'll they schedule it over the radios and then they come by and do it for you.

Do you ever build anything out there and it didn't work because yours has a lot of moving parts?

Yeah, shockingly, man, I don't know. This is not it's not would No, You're fucked. So we've had things that didn't work like as well as we hoped, but shockingly they work pretty well. And that big four and a half story COVID thing like we couldn't We never assembled that before we got to Bernie Man because the thing is like, I mean, it's four and a half stories tall.

We need a crane. It takes a whole week to assemble it.

Like we assembled a tiny little section of it and then we just got out there with cranes and telehandlers and just like.

And who are these knuckleheads that are shirtless with hard hats that volunteer to help. It's our friends, I mean, but you have like real crws of like sixty people. Are you always the idea man?

Yeah, it's me and my my my main art partner in all this. His name is your student. He's a German engineer. Also we met at this design company. We work together for years on it and now we just make art together. And he's a lot of the concepts come from him. He's like the origami guy. I think I'm more the builder of the two of us, because I just like, I know, most people say like tools are like a means to an end. They just learn how to use the tools so they can manifest their vision.

I'm kind of the opposite. I just want to use tools.

I like using CNCs and milling machines and three D printers, and I like using heavy equipment. Having a project to build is just an excuse to get to use that stuff. That's what I like. If I get to go into the desert and use some telehandlers and big stuff and be in the air and like putting stuff together, Like that's really fun for me.

Are you ever harnessed in due yea, oh yeah, crazy.

They make you now. Oh in the old days they didn't. I mean he was he was watching, huh. But now they actually will come around and like blow a whistle and be like put on a harness. And luckily we know these days that we bring harnesses.

But are there like this structure is not up to code.

More now than there was before. But it's kind of a bizarre interpretation. So a few years ago there was a I'm gonna forget the name of the real piece, but it was basically a shishkeabab of cars of like ten cars on a big spike, so it was like sixty feet tall. This car car car, car, car car all the way up and each one was appointed differently. It had like astro turf and whatever, and you could literally climb all the way up.

You are encouraged to climate, Well, that's the thing. It's burning.

Man.

If it doesn't say not to climate, people say like, oh, they're encouraging to climb it, right, that's the default. But people are drunk and they're something else and they're right, and they're climbing it and it's slippery because it's covered in dust, and my understanding, they had to shut it down and put a rope around it and be like, you can't climb this because someone fell, not because they climbed something they shouldn't have, but because one of the

Now, we have to have proper railings all right. Now, who you identify the most but tech bros or the hippies, Which where do you fall?

I'm like a weird one, right because like I work in tech kind somewhat like semi begrudgingly.

And you own a vest. I own a vest, although it.

Used to be like the stereotypical like Patagonia, you know, type of vest, and now it's like an actual work vest because I'm out building stuff and as like pockets for like construction pencils and stuff.

So at least I feel good about that. So that's it for you right now? You are just an artist's Oh no, I have a job, you do? I know, it's really disappointing. I felt like that was I mean, well, because it's nine months of prep work.

We only do it every few years. It takes a lot.

Of Oh you don't do it every year? Now? Are you sad when you go and you haven't you don't have an installation?

And I'm stop when I go sometimes anyway, Well.

I'm just in general, when you go and you don't have a project that you're building, Yeah.

It feels weird not to contribute, which is a Again, this sounds a little like, I mean, people to feel the guilt. But Berni Man only works and people like do something right. If like Bernie Man's not making the art, they're not doing any of that. So if people just show up and they just bring a tent and they're just like entertain me, show me art, and everyone does that, there's literally nothing there. There's just the man and a bunch of porta potties and some street signs like that's it.

It really is like like church, where you know there's people that do a lot and go above and beyond and are going to get into heaven, and then there's people that when the offering plate comes by, they just pretend that they put something in it and keep it going.

But I mean, it's it's cheesy, but it is it is a city, it's the third largest city in Nevada for that week.

Is there a mayor? No? And which way does that city normally vote? If I were to.

Guess, well, that's a I think you know which way?

A bunch of conservatives. Yeah, probably not so much, but it is.

There are people from all over the world too, so there's quite an international crowd there. And I mean, look, it makes it sound like I'm selling it. I'm not selling it. It's not for every buddy. There's a lot of crap involved in it too.

Where do you sleep when you're there?

A tent most of the time. I've never done an RV. A tent most of the time. But then at some point we were making big art. We had these big trucks with us every time because you got to bring a bunch of your stuff, bring the art. And at some point I was like, oh, we have a truck. Why isn't someone sleeping in the truck? And so for maybe five years I would rent a truck and then spend

Do you get an AC unit?

I have like an evaporative cooler and some solar panels and like the whole thing.

Okay, this past year I did a tent though, Like it's you know, it's kind of the og, Like you sleep well on a tent.

You're tired enough from everything that you sleep pretty well.

What about porta potties? You have no issue using a porta potty as a grown man.

I'd almost argue as a grown man, you should be able to be like, Okay, I can go to the bathroom in a porta potty. I feel a little worse for like women who have to get it'sick a lot. It's more complicated and they generally.

Have to sit. I like, okay too, and now I can. Yeah, you probably opt not to if you had. I do like the porta potty that has a time any little yurnal in the shop, A lot of them do. Yeah, that's kind of a nice little feature. Yeah, because I can usually do that with my son. He can use the main one. Then I like look over like, oh god, no, he's got like his hands inside. Oh yeah, that's no, it's not good.

They're generally pretty good at the beginning of the week or during build week, and then as as burning man goes on, they are like in worse and worse condition.

I have a few small toilets that I have that I travel with. It's nice put that in your tent.

Let's think through what my tent smells like with a bathroom.

This thing's nice. This one's nice. It's got you just take.

A composting one or like no, no, it's just a.

Bag a bag of put one of those chemical pills in it that they can handle. A porta potty. It's only handling five gallons. And people bring like.

A gel thing that like private pilots use because if you're flying a plane, like a small plane by yourself, there's no bathroom, so they have like these things that you can pee in that are like turned it into a gel immediately and then you.

Can just like hug it in the back or whatever you do. I didn't know this. It's good. I got to get a couple of these gel packs.

Hospital wipes are my like, that's that's the thing I found in year two. They're like they're like baby wipes, like wet wipes, but they are really thick because they're designed for like wiping down full people. Uh huh, so like hospital wipes. To bring a bunch of those, it's great.

Oh you just use it as a bath. It's like, yeah, it's a bath.

Your girlfriend she go, yeah, she don't even once with me, but but.

She's been before. No, that was that was it? Yeah, and she's like I'm good. No, she loved Thank you for showing it. It inspired her to start making art again. Oh are people stealing bicycles? Yeah they are. Yeah, these are your questions.

Yeah, I just I.

Just see everybody walking around bicycles. I'm like, somebody's got to just go there and clean up. What are you eating out there all day? Are people cooking at the restaurants?

Yeah, there are a lot of camps that they're offering is food. They have like waffles and chicken for breakfast, or they have like whatever. That's that's a lot of the offerings are food.

There's nobody grilling out now, there's people grilling. No.

I had a friend who brought a whole smoker. He smoked like a whole like roast thing. Like it's the people do crazy stuff. There's a bunch of fishermen that used to come and they bring a whole frigerator like freezer truck with their catch, and literally every night they would just make a whole thing for like fifty people, and whichever fifty people showed up, that's their offering.

And you have to pay or you're not. They're not allowed to charge you.

You know, you can't pay any Like if you go to a camp in the offering us food, then they're just going to give you food. That's what they're contributing. Joining a camp generally cost money because it cost they have to rent trucks and set up shade, and it's whole production.

What would they do to me if I brought a carnival, a carnival like actual rides, I think you could as long as you don't have to pay for it. Right, No, people would love it. I think I should bring a carnival. Bring a carnival, because who doesn't like a carnival? They truck them in, set up some rides, bring in they would love. Who wouldn't love that? What about the games too? They I mean they get wrecked, but bring it. Oh yeah, they would do awful things. So you can't trust these kids that's the.

Problem, and the and the wind and the dust and the.

Enough about the dust, How is it that it's horrible?

This year was great, it was almost no dust. But it's pretty bad most of the time. Do you what do you walk around the mass sometimes?

Yeah? Goggles the whole thing. Oh yeah, that's right. It's just it's just stupid. Yeah, it's not just fashion. It actually like there's a reason. Have you been to other festivals. I'm not on a festival person. Have you been to them? Though? Have you been to watch mccallck.

I live really close to Coachelle. I've never been to Coachella. It's too many people?

Is burning them up? Music too or no?

A little bit due for the city? Yeah, I mean there's there are more like DJs and things.

Like that from Miami. Is that is that your roots? Do you still like club music? Can you handle it without wanting to throw up?

The only place I like it is burning man?

Does any huge acts ever come in? And just like I'm gonna perform now.

Only of the like the specific type, right, there's like Tycho and Rufustel soul and like like there's things like that.

There's not like live generally live performers. Why somebody hasn't Why isn't Taylor Swift? Like, you know what, watch this. I'm going to go into Burning Man with like four semis, set up my stuff and just do a free show here. And people that would think that they wouldn't like it or like, you know what, I would.

Be very curious to see what would happen because it's a non commodified event, and so they'd be like, but she's a brand, Yeah, bringing your brand?

Yeah, I don't know. I would love to see it. Yeah, come on, Taylor.

I mean, in theory, no one can pay her to do it.

That's part of the kind of the rules. But yeah she needs it, No, she doesn't need it. You're building a tiny home in Joshua Tree by yourself.

Did the framing, girlfriends helping with the sheathing. We did the underground conduit. So I'm doing a lot of it.

Okay, is it off the grid? Yeah, it's off off the grid. Is it permitted? Oh yeah, it's legit. Do you have the city inspectors coming out? Oh? Yeah? Do they infuriate you with? I mean, how dumb some of them are? You know?

If they watch this, My job is like really hard for the next year. Okay, let me reframing people just doing a job and they all do it.

I built, I built from scratch, and I mean I did Coastal Commission for four years. Yeah, and just the nonsense that they make, the hoops that they make you jump through. But I have to say the cool thing.

Everybody like makes fun of California and for right for reasons, But you actually can do all the work yourself and it can be permitted. They actually let you do it. You can do gas lines, you can do all your electrically, you can do framing. You can do all of it yourself and have it be permitted.

If I have any work that I can roll the dice and not pull the permits, I just do it because I'm not going to let it go.

You know they were recording this right, Yeah, I don't care. Well, it's even crazier because I'm like, way out there, I'm twenty five minutes off road.

There's nothing there. You're bouncing the whole way to your place. Yeah it's dirt road. Yeah, that's exciting.

So it's like you're not coming across me by accident. So it's like the idea that the whole thing actually is permitted, is like inspected is I mean? I guess good for me, But I'm not sure if I needed to.

Talk the girlfriend into that type of lifestyle, she's the right one. She's a sex toy designer. You'd probably like talking to it. Hey, well that I mean, I don't know. I feel like she's a people person. How does she She don't want to be that fun that grid.

This is an interesting one. We're both extreme introverts. We're not shy, but we're just like we want our peace and quiet. We want to make crazy art in the middle of the desert and just have it be like quiet.

When you say tiny, what's your what's your square footage're gonna end up being.

So the tiny home is really tiny. It's like three hundred square feet tiny, tiny, tiny. We're building a workshop also that's like two thousand square feet, which is like pretty big for the middle of nowhere. And people look at the plans and think we mislabeled them. No, no, no, it's it's like a bed and a kitchenette and a bathroom and then a much bigger workshop.

Is the bed aloft or no.

No good, it's gonna be a Murphy bed though in the future, like we can just leave it up and have it be like a painting studio or whatever.

I don't like that, Okay, I don't like you're not invited. Well, I mean, I'm just I'm well, I don't want to sleep there is what I'm saying. Okay, how close to finished are you? Oh? I'd forever?

Like the home is, the tiny home is dried in. The inside's not don but it's dride and the outside is completely done. It looks done, but you go inside there and it's like there's no there's no dry wall and.

Stuff like that.

The workshop is almost dried in, so at least there's a roof in most of the walls, not not all the windows.

And then there's nothing in there either. But it's getting there. Record high heat that you worked in this summer, you know. The fun thing is, so I live basically in Palm Springs. Really hot there. It's like one hundred and twenty something in the summer the peak.

But this property is at elevation, so the hottest that gets there really ever is like one oh two or something.

It's not that bad.

It's very dry, there's a breeze if you're in the shade, it's not so bad.

Do you like missed You're gonna put misters around it outside of your house. Okay.

So there's like an interesting tangent here to burning Man that I don't know if you make a connection to they're always walking around people with missing bottles, because I think it's like a nice like oh and joy.

It is like, please don't spray me. You don't like being I don't. If I'm already hot, I'm okay with it.

If you then make me freezing for five seconds, that does not improve the quality of my life.

Are you Latino at all?

No?

Okay, I didn't know.

Is there a connection between like being like five seconds of being freezing Latino?

Every one of my Cuban friends from Miami fucking just gets freezing cold at the drop of a hat, Like it takes no time at all for them to complain, like can you turn the fan off? I'm like, all right, geez, anyway, everybody's on my show. I give them stuff a gift for being on my show, but it's just stuff around my house that I get rid of. So I have a few things for you. One, because you're always complaining

I have generators and all sorts of stuff that needs this.

Right, So that's right, that's for you this. I don't know what it is. It was in my closet. When they build out their filters.

You're basically, can you identify the object I'm handing you?

Tell me what this is and why you and what can you do with it? I have no idea what that is and why it's it in my house.

Yeah, it's a film. It's like a metalized acetate, but I don't know it's flame resistant, which is surprising.

It's a filter. Okay, do you need that? I don't. I'm not exactly sure what it is. I thought you would figure that out for me.

Oh, it's a Panavision company, so it's definitely for like a some sort of production whatever.

I don't need. I certainly don't need it. It's been in my it's my close right. I'm just excited that you I was worried that you weren't gonna like the Pelican. The Pelican's probably my favorite. Well good, that's because it's a touch of Florida. I know you say you wanted to get out of Florida, just like I did. I needed to get out of Florida. Is the right amount of Florida you have? We still have that A touch might even be a little bit much.

I need just like a like a mist of Florida.

Uh, how would you say that Burning Man has changed over the past decade. I mean, so I've been going. It's great.

I've been going for eighteen years, which is sorry, over a period of eighteen years, I've been thirteen times.

Arguably too long, not arguably.

Definitively definitively too It's too long for anybody. But it is interesting because that means I saw before social media was really a thing, and almost just as importantly, before easy smartphones and digital cameras were a thing. So I know it's the old person talking, but it was nice to go back in the day when there wasn't a camera anywhere in sight about it. There was no go brother was like nobody was holding a phone up for anything.

So you could just.

Literally do what you wanted, where what you wanted, act however you wanted, and like you could really have it be a whole different place. Now for sure, someone's recording kind of everything that's happening.

Do you know what your next big art project is going to be?

We are already working on something. We've made the same mistake several times in a row, which is we build a thing that has to be assembled completely and can't be shown in a smaller or a different fashion. So we're working on like a smaller Oregomnie kind of module that will show at burning Man hopefully next year, and then hopefully we'll be able to reconfigure it so if a museum wants a different scale of it, we can.

What about just some it's jerk that just wants to buy a chunk of it? Can they reach out to you? And they can reach out put an offer in. They can reach out, but we we typically don't.

We've done one commission project, but typically we just build what we think will be delightful.

Like there's this beautiful bear.

That was at burning Man I don't know five years ago, and it was made out of pennies.

It's like a huge twenty I know it's in Tahoe right now.

Yeah, the or some major or some majors.

It's two hundred and three thousand pennies. Hey there you go.

May buy the Fergusons I think.

And it's supposed to be just on loan in Tahoe City current and.

It's beautiful ight because the pennies are like put on edge, so they looks like further, yes, but flat. So that was a Burning Man project and it was no that yeah, and so it was. It was at the Smithsonian showing of some Burning Men art along with our project, and I overheard someone asking one of the artists is it a statement about nature and commercialism and us ruining.

Nature and all this stuff?

And one of them said, like, I just wanted to build a bear out of some pennies, and like that's kind of how we feel about our thing. Like we have a sense of what's compelling and delightful for people, and so that's our guiding light. We just want to make something where people show up young and old and they're like, they giggle, they laugh, they're surprised.

So that's our goal. I love that penny bear thing. But let me tell you what, how many times I've had a yell at kids that try to pry pennies out of it? Yeah, and they successfully do it sometimes. Yeah, it's a bomber. And I'm like, not, hey, kids, knock it off. That's not what art is for. It's a bomber.

But they're like, oh, we get a penny, that's the weird thing. Like, yeah, burning Man, someone might try to climb stuff. But what I've actually discovered is people treat all of that stuff better generally at burning Man than they have in almost any.

Other place that we put our stuff.

It's really interesting, like there's an understanding that you're in this huge gallery and people contributed this thing, and yeah, if you put something in a park or whatever, people because they kind of didn't buy into their being art there, they feel like they kind of don't have any relationship to it. I think.

So you're not going to tell me what this next big project is, you know it's still taking shape. You want me to you want me my help on the buildings?

Yes, well, I mean seriously, it's all help.

I just I don't don't actually want to physically help. I'd like to more. Just like from a far chime in.

You can you can say you support us.

All right, Fine, I'll support you all right. Jesse, thank you for being on the show. Pure get strong.

You get manicures, No, I just bite them constantly, do you.

Yeah? I don't bite and I don't get manicures anyway. Pasha, Oh, I want to thank Jesse for being on the show. And I can't wait to get out to Bernie Man. Carl, you ever been to Bernie Man. You look like you're at Bernie Man right now on some drug, some ecstasy or something. We got big news. A celebration is in order. You guys ready for this? Oh yeah, we hit five hundred million subscribers.

I think it's five hundred thousand.

Five hundred thousand subscribers. That's not nothing on YouTube. Okay, that's not nothing, Carl, that's not nothing. We have five hundred thousand subscribers on our YouTube channel. We started this channel a mere ten months ago, and now look at us. A force to be reckon with, an influencer, a trendsetter. Does anyone on YouTube have more subscribers than us?

I haven't seen it.

The most subscribed YouTube channel. Wow, we did it all right. Let's do our regular plugs. Okayboysworrepink dot com, Eddie goosling dot com. Check out his tour dates. Check out our tour dates, Go see us do stand up comedy. You know, meet us, hang out with us, fellowship. Okay, now it's time for our free plug. This one near and dear to my heart, I'm gonna give a free plug to folks.