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How Burning Man Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
0:13
Speaker 1: Crowhart Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Cloud. Right, you gotta
0:20
Speaker 1: pass me the conk so I can speak. Okay, thanks,
0:25
Speaker 1: Now I have the conk. Go ahead, I almost spoke,
0:29
Speaker 1: all right. Here, here's the con I almost spoke without
0:31
Speaker 1: a conk. Here's the conk. Okay, thanks. We can do
0:34
Speaker 1: that the whole time, and we need like a circle
0:36
Speaker 1: of people to turn around and shout what we're saying
0:38
Speaker 1: that everybody else you can't hear. Would you or would
0:41
Speaker 1: you not ever attend Burning Man? No? No, I mean
0:46
Speaker 1: it sounds awesome, and like, I think it's pretty cool
0:48
Speaker 1: that the people who go there having a good time.
0:51
Speaker 1: But man, not for me either. I don't. I don't. Yeah,
0:55
Speaker 1: I like looking at pictures. Yeah, it seems like a
0:57
Speaker 1: fun time. It seems like it would be a really
1:00
Speaker 1: need experience, but actually going in in reality. Now, thanks
1:07
Speaker 1: for begetting that out of the way. I was just curious.
1:09
Speaker 1: I'll use one of my father's old lines, I wouldn't
1:11
Speaker 1: go to Burning Man if it was in my backyard.
1:14
Speaker 1: Oh really? He well, not Burning Man, but he that
1:16
Speaker 1: used to be I wouldn't see I wouldn't see so
1:19
Speaker 1: and so play if they're in my backyard. So but
1:22
Speaker 1: that's almost like like you despise that. It sounds like
1:25
Speaker 1: you wouldn't go to Burning Man just because. Oh no,
1:27
Speaker 1: I don't despise it. I was just kidding, right, it's
1:30
Speaker 1: you know, it's a very interesting thing and I'm excited
1:32
Speaker 1: to talk about it. Well, let's talk about it, Chuck.
1:35
Speaker 1: If you have been living under a rock for the
1:37
Speaker 1: past like fifteen or so years, since it's become a thing, um,
1:42
Speaker 1: we'll tell you what Burning Man is. It's a week
1:45
Speaker 1: long festival. It's held out in the desert, the Black
1:48
Speaker 1: Rock Desert in Nevada. Black Rock City. They create and
1:52
Speaker 1: their very own city, right, and it is like a
1:55
Speaker 1: planned city out in the desert. It's a small city.
1:59
Speaker 1: It's meant to be temporary because, as we'll see, everything
2:03
Speaker 1: that isn't taken down at Burning Man ends up burning
2:06
Speaker 1: and carried out. Right, everything that's not taken down it
2:11
Speaker 1: is burned. And that that's one of the tenants. We'll
2:13
Speaker 1: get to the tenants. Oh yeah, the principles, right, yeah,
2:16
Speaker 1: the prince of the ten principles. But just like if
2:18
Speaker 1: you are a burner, that's what they're called, and you
2:22
Speaker 1: go to Burning Man and you're just there for the week,
2:24
Speaker 1: the festival, the fun um, and you get there, there's
2:28
Speaker 1: a city, and you leave and there's a city, And
2:31
Speaker 1: if you went a month on either side, there would
2:33
Speaker 1: be nothing there because there's a group of volunteers who
2:37
Speaker 1: works as part of the Burning Man festival who go
2:40
Speaker 1: and build the city and then take it down. Because
2:42
Speaker 1: it's what you're saying. One of the tenants, one of
2:44
Speaker 1: the ten principles is leave no trace. That's right. So
2:47
Speaker 1: when they leave, there's allegedly not a trace that they
2:51
Speaker 1: were ever there. I want to test that in this
2:54
Speaker 1: ancient lake bed in Arroyo. Yeah. It's uh. It is
2:58
Speaker 1: August September three this year, and this year's art theme
3:04
Speaker 1: of an art theme every year is a cargo cult. Yeah,
3:07
Speaker 1: which is pretty interesting. I think so. UM two thousand ten,
3:10
Speaker 1: its Metropolis two thousand nine was evolution before that American Dream,
3:15
Speaker 1: Hope and Fear the Green Man. They just have different
3:17
Speaker 1: art themes and Um. One of the things you can
3:20
Speaker 1: do there as a burner is build, uh, either create
3:26
Speaker 1: your own theme. UM group and experience like a camp,
3:30
Speaker 1: like a group, Yeah, like a theme camp, which can
3:33
Speaker 1: be anything. I mean, did you look at some of
3:35
Speaker 1: the theme camps. It's all over the map. Or and
3:39
Speaker 1: or create your own big public work of art that
3:43
Speaker 1: is under that main theme. And while you're out there,
3:46
Speaker 1: you're gonna need a place to live. And a lot
3:48
Speaker 1: of people make art out of that. I mean really
3:51
Speaker 1: cool stuff, right, Like I'm not easily impressed. But when
3:56
Speaker 1: we look at some of these Burning Man um I
3:59
Speaker 1: want to say phibits, but art pieces, and it's just
4:03
Speaker 1: mind blowing how involved these things are that these people
4:08
Speaker 1: carry in and a symbol from all over the world. Yeah,
4:10
Speaker 1: and like you said, the theme that's that's given out
4:12
Speaker 1: a cheer is meant to kind of unite all these
4:15
Speaker 1: pieces of art into something some common thread. Yet, but
4:20
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can just do whatever you want. It
4:21
Speaker 1: is Burning Man. After it's very strict. If you show
4:25
Speaker 1: up with any art that doesn't fall within the prescribed guidelines,
4:28
Speaker 1: they will turn you away. No, And you make that
4:31
Speaker 1: joke because Burning Man is very much known for its
4:36
Speaker 1: anything goes atmosphere. It wasn't until two thousand and four
4:39
Speaker 1: that there were ten principles that became official. Um, and
4:44
Speaker 1: this thing started in nine I think six. Yeah, let's
4:48
Speaker 1: get let's go back, let's go way back. San Francisco.
4:53
Speaker 1: At was it Baker Beach? Um, a group of friends
4:57
Speaker 1: burned in eight foot tall man made out of wood
5:01
Speaker 1: as an effigy. Um. The founder and the first dude
5:05
Speaker 1: to do that was what was his name, Harvey Milk. No,
5:11
Speaker 1: his name was Larry Harvey. Larry Harvey was close. He
5:15
Speaker 1: supposedly got the idea from this other friend of his,
5:18
Speaker 1: this woman who had burned things in effigy on that
5:21
Speaker 1: beach before. Um. I think that's where he supposedly got
5:24
Speaker 1: the idea. It was not from the movie The Wicker Man.
5:26
Speaker 1: He said, Yeah, a lot of people made that comparison.
5:29
Speaker 1: And he's like, no, you guys are way off. And
5:32
Speaker 1: they're like, and have you seen the dreamwork? Yeah? Exactly, Yeah,
5:35
Speaker 1: the original was pretty neat. Yeah, bizarre. Um. So they
5:38
Speaker 1: burned this eight foot tall man and uh come of
5:42
Speaker 1: through a little party. And then the next year that
5:44
Speaker 1: became a larger man, and a few more people and
5:47
Speaker 1: a few more until ah, it became so large that
5:52
Speaker 1: San Francisco said, you can't be burning things that large
5:56
Speaker 1: on this beach. They said, fine, we'll go take it
5:58
Speaker 1: to the high desert. Well, apparently Larry Harvey was like, fine,
6:02
Speaker 1: we won't burn it, but we're gonna Can we keep
6:03
Speaker 1: this thing up? And and uh, this is the year
6:06
Speaker 1: that like people showed up because the San Francisco Cacophony Society,
6:10
Speaker 1: which grew out of the Suicide Club, which is pretty
6:13
Speaker 1: cool in and of itself, put it in the newsletter
6:15
Speaker 1: that this thing was going on. So a bunch of
6:16
Speaker 1: people showed up. Larry Harvey said that, um, okay, we
6:20
Speaker 1: won't burn this thing, but we're gonna leave it up
6:22
Speaker 1: and we'll just take it down. And everybody's like, whoa, no,
6:24
Speaker 1: we gotta burn it. So at the end of that one,
6:28
Speaker 1: they disassembled it and decided that they would go burn
6:30
Speaker 1: it in the desert. That's right. And I looked to
6:33
Speaker 1: see if there was an original symbol symbolic uh, you know,
6:38
Speaker 1: moved behind this, and I don't think there was other
6:42
Speaker 1: than he just called it an act of radical self expression,
6:44
Speaker 1: which I don't think it represented anything. That's one of
6:47
Speaker 1: the tenants the principles, that's right, But it wasn't like
6:51
Speaker 1: he's the man keeping us down and we're burning him,
6:54
Speaker 1: right exactly, although it definitely has become that in a
6:57
Speaker 1: lot of sense, not necessarily the Burning Man, but other
6:59
Speaker 1: stuff that's burned at Burning Man. UM. That was right, Uh, yeah,
7:07
Speaker 1: started in eighty six and then nine when I think
7:10
Speaker 1: they moved desert. Yeah, they went to burn it at
7:13
Speaker 1: the end of eighty nine to end the festival. In
7:15
Speaker 1: eighty nine and the ninety the whole thing began and
7:18
Speaker 1: ended in the desert, and Um it became very much
7:22
Speaker 1: this thing where it's a there are very few rules,
7:28
Speaker 1: no laws. Some people refer to it as a temporary
7:31
Speaker 1: autonomous zone. Basically it is a little town, like we've said,
7:37
Speaker 1: that is just totally left alone by the authorities. The
7:40
Speaker 1: the org, which is the group that runs the Burning
7:43
Speaker 1: Man festival. UM deals with the Bureau of Land Management,
7:47
Speaker 1: and the BLM is like, okay, you guys, just don't
7:50
Speaker 1: mess this place up, and we'll let you do, and
7:52
Speaker 1: we're gonna leave you alone. And they're left alone and
7:55
Speaker 1: everybody goes in. They form UM this social experiment, which
7:59
Speaker 1: is a a a city, a place, a group of
8:04
Speaker 1: culture without consumerism or commodification. Yeah, no consumerism, no buying
8:10
Speaker 1: and selling of things. No. Uh, I mean it's not
8:15
Speaker 1: a music festival. Although there is music there, like lots
8:18
Speaker 1: of like DJ parties and stuff, but it's not like
8:21
Speaker 1: Lollapaloosa or something or fall. There's nobody who's supposed to
8:24
Speaker 1: be making money off of this, Yeah, for profit. The
8:28
Speaker 1: only thing that really costs money is ice. Yeah, and
8:33
Speaker 1: a few other things. But there supposedly is no cash
8:36
Speaker 1: transactions between burners. Right, well, hold on before we go
8:40
Speaker 1: any further, Chuck, It seems like it's a good time
8:42
Speaker 1: for a message. CNN presenting Morgan Spurlock Inside Man, a
8:52
Speaker 1: new original series, Sunday Night, ten Eastern and Pacific on CNN. So, uh, okay,
8:59
Speaker 1: where were we? We were in the desert. This thing
9:02
Speaker 1: is growing from and if you look at year by year,
9:05
Speaker 1: it's like eight hundred, than two thousand, than four thousand,
9:09
Speaker 1: than six, than ten, then fifteen, and it literally just
9:11
Speaker 1: kind of crept up like that up to the point
9:13
Speaker 1: now where I believe they're actually capping it at fifty
9:16
Speaker 1: and they're selling tickets and it's now selling out. Yeah.
9:20
Speaker 1: The first time it ever sold out was in two
9:21
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, and they have it set up first of
9:24
Speaker 1: all so that you can't scout like you are allowed
9:27
Speaker 1: to per credit card. Okay, but that apparently it's just
9:30
Speaker 1: led to people like having a bunch of people call
9:33
Speaker 1: with their credit cards and keeping all of them for themselves.
9:37
Speaker 1: They also have it on a sliding scale, so if
9:39
Speaker 1: you are buying early, you pay more. So I think
9:43
Speaker 1: it's like six fifty bucks for a ticket. That's the
9:46
Speaker 1: opposite of how things you like that usually work, right,
9:49
Speaker 1: usually the early purchase of the cheaper ones and it
9:51
Speaker 1: gets more expensive. This does the exact opposite. It's a
9:53
Speaker 1: little weird. They get um cheaper and cheaper as it comes.
9:57
Speaker 1: And apparently they're also work all low income tickets which
10:01
Speaker 1: are half price of the lowest normal price. And then
10:05
Speaker 1: apparently a lot of times if you show up there
10:07
Speaker 1: will be scalpers there, but they're selling the tickets for
10:10
Speaker 1: less than face value, sometimes half of the lowest price,
10:14
Speaker 1: just to fit that. Uh yeah, that's kind of cool.
10:16
Speaker 1: And um, I'm sure people give away a ticket here
10:19
Speaker 1: or there. Uh, but it's gotten to the point now
10:22
Speaker 1: now that it's sold out officially fifty tickets I think
10:27
Speaker 1: or um, now it's like different, like you have to
10:32
Speaker 1: buy a ticket you can't just show up because you
10:34
Speaker 1: might drive through hundred fifty miles from San Francisco and
10:39
Speaker 1: then be like, we can't let you in. Sorry, Yeah,
10:41
Speaker 1: there's the rules. Uh, there is rules. There aren't many
10:46
Speaker 1: rules aside from that though. Um, like you said, it's
10:48
Speaker 1: kind of anything goes everything from sex clubs two people
10:53
Speaker 1: setting up their own bars, to filmmakers and artists and
10:56
Speaker 1: performance artists, and I mean it's really anything goes um
11:02
Speaker 1: And one of the things that they try to get
11:05
Speaker 1: people to do is take a little piece of that
11:07
Speaker 1: attitude back home with them. You know that it's this
11:11
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. I imagine there's a lot
11:15
Speaker 1: of There's some people who are true devotes of Burning
11:18
Speaker 1: Man and this Burning Man philosophy and like there they
11:21
Speaker 1: go set up the city and like they maintain the
11:23
Speaker 1: website you're around. There's others who are like new, There's
11:28
Speaker 1: some who are like there, but there are they're still
11:30
Speaker 1: bringing in a lot of the hang ups from the
11:31
Speaker 1: outside world, and like sure they have dreads, but they're
11:34
Speaker 1: also like real gossipy or whatever, and there's like just
11:38
Speaker 1: normal joes. A lot of a lot of d i
11:41
Speaker 1: y makers love going to Burning Man because like you're
11:44
Speaker 1: out there in the desert and like you better build
11:47
Speaker 1: yourself a shade structure where else you're going to burn. Um,
11:51
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of hands on building. Um. So
11:55
Speaker 1: there's a lot of normal people with normal jobs who
11:57
Speaker 1: use a week of their vacation to go out to
11:59
Speaker 1: the desert and just totally cut loose and like you're saying, yeah,
12:02
Speaker 1: like you're saying, part of the hope is that all
12:06
Speaker 1: of the stuff that happens here and just relaxing and
12:09
Speaker 1: forgetting about like having to spend money on something or
12:12
Speaker 1: you know, like sharing your food with somebody you've never met,
12:16
Speaker 1: All of this stuff is meant to be carried out
12:18
Speaker 1: into the rest of your life the other fifty one
12:20
Speaker 1: weeks a year is the author of the article puts it. Yeah,
12:23
Speaker 1: like I just I just gave away my last bit
12:26
Speaker 1: of food, but uh, God gave me three hits of acid,
12:30
Speaker 1: And I just had sex with four strangers, right and
12:33
Speaker 1: I haven't worn't close for the last three days and
12:35
Speaker 1: we all smell and it's great. Yeah. Now, there's certain
12:37
Speaker 1: aspects of it you probably shouldn't bring back into your
12:40
Speaker 1: normal life, Like going to work naked is a bad
12:43
Speaker 1: idea under almost all circumstances. Um. But the mindset, the
12:48
Speaker 1: philosophy behind it just kind of like, uh, like none
12:53
Speaker 1: of this matters as much as a lot of people
12:56
Speaker 1: put stock into it. Agreed. So black Rock City itself,
13:00
Speaker 1: if you have ever, it's not just a big mass
13:03
Speaker 1: of tents um. It is actually has a design. If
13:06
Speaker 1: you look at photos of Burning Man from above, it
13:09
Speaker 1: is a big cum Oh yeah, yeah you have You
13:14
Speaker 1: never seen the aerial shop. I don't know it should
13:17
Speaker 1: be a b sure or him. Uh And it is
13:22
Speaker 1: a big ce with um. The burning Man they just
13:27
Speaker 1: call him. The man is at the center, of course,
13:29
Speaker 1: and supposedly you can. They have him up on a
13:32
Speaker 1: big pedestal now like fifty high, and it varies every year,
13:37
Speaker 1: but he's generally with the pedestal about a hundred feet high,
13:40
Speaker 1: so you can see him from from anywhere in the camp. Uh.
13:44
Speaker 1: And I think this year, because the cargo cold, they're
13:46
Speaker 1: building him on top of like this flying saucer. Oh
13:49
Speaker 1: really structure, that's what the pavilion is meant to look like. Cool. Yeah,
13:53
Speaker 1: it's in the hopes that aliens. Oh yeah, well it
13:56
Speaker 1: looks a lot like a crop circle. It looks very
13:58
Speaker 1: much like a crop circle um or half finished crops circle,
14:02
Speaker 1: lazy crops circle. The organ is saying on the Burning
14:06
Speaker 1: Man website that they hope that they're sure that this
14:09
Speaker 1: pavilion will attract lots of aliens, and they hope that
14:12
Speaker 1: it will stimulate our planets faltering economy, which I've read
14:16
Speaker 1: a bunch of times and I said, like, surely this
14:19
Speaker 1: is a joke and it maybe it was lost. I mean, no,
14:24
Speaker 1: the economy things. They're hoping that our planets economy will
14:28
Speaker 1: be stimulated by Burning Man attracting aliens if you take
14:33
Speaker 1: take the whole alien part out, the fact that Burning
14:35
Speaker 1: Man is considered with our planets economy being stimulated. There's
14:38
Speaker 1: this really interesting interview um on a website called Public Books.
14:43
Speaker 1: It's an interview with T. J. Jackson Lear's uh, and
14:47
Speaker 1: it's called The Confidence Economy. I recommend everybody go read
14:50
Speaker 1: it because he's talking about how everything has transitioned to
14:53
Speaker 1: economics now, like as he puts it, like it went
14:56
Speaker 1: from like all of our moral ideals went from the
15:00
Speaker 1: religious to the cultural and now to the economic. And
15:04
Speaker 1: so the idea of risk, this existential idea that like
15:08
Speaker 1: we're in danger. There's danger out there and by doing
15:11
Speaker 1: certain things or avoiding certain things where we're um, we're
15:15
Speaker 1: going into an avoiding risk has now been melted down
15:20
Speaker 1: to a number on a banker's computer. Like that's what
15:24
Speaker 1: risk is to us. Now everything is economics. And like
15:27
Speaker 1: seeing that on their website like really kind of brought
15:29
Speaker 1: that home. That's that was my little thing on that.
15:32
Speaker 1: Have you do you watch a veep? No, it's the
15:35
Speaker 1: White House Show, um comedy And one of the guys,
15:38
Speaker 1: the new characters this year is uh Gary what's his
15:41
Speaker 1: face from office face? Yeah, um, Gary Cole, And he's
15:45
Speaker 1: the numbers guy and it's just sort of straight along
15:48
Speaker 1: those lines. All he does is talk numbers and that's
15:51
Speaker 1: that's his whole entire job and the staff's entire job.
15:54
Speaker 1: That's how we've become as a culture. Everything is economic space.
15:58
Speaker 1: Now that's kind of sad. It is. Um So back
16:01
Speaker 1: to black Rock City where where numbers don't count, Um
16:06
Speaker 1: it is, and it is uh it is, like you said,
16:11
Speaker 1: like a city. They have their eye store, obviously, have
16:13
Speaker 1: recycling and volunteering and medical facilities and information facilities and shuttles.
16:21
Speaker 1: Although one of the rules is you cannot drive on
16:23
Speaker 1: the playa. That's what they call it. Um, that's why
16:26
Speaker 1: there's a lot of bikes. Biking seems to be the
16:28
Speaker 1: best way to get around. Apparently you can get a
16:30
Speaker 1: permit from the city, the nearby city that that Plia
16:34
Speaker 1: falls under, I guess at the same county. So you
16:38
Speaker 1: can't because there's art cars out there. But well you're
16:41
Speaker 1: not allowed to drive where the people are though. Um,
16:44
Speaker 1: oh yeah, there's like motor homes that is what most
16:47
Speaker 1: people stay in. But like once you get there, you
16:49
Speaker 1: like take the keys out and burn them. Um, and
16:53
Speaker 1: then at the end of the week you're like, man,
16:55
Speaker 1: I just burn my keys. That was self expression, true,
16:59
Speaker 1: But um, there are no fires directly on the ground
17:03
Speaker 1: because that leaves a burn scar on the gentle high desert. Um,
17:07
Speaker 1: so they have to I guess have like fire pits
17:09
Speaker 1: and stuff. And I guess we could get into the
17:13
Speaker 1: core principles right. Well, yeah, we've been kind of dancing
17:16
Speaker 1: around him a little bit. You said leave no trace.
17:19
Speaker 1: That's a big one. Um. Radical self expression yeah, radical inclusion, yeah,
17:27
Speaker 1: radical self reliance and radical self expression. Those are the
17:30
Speaker 1: three radicals, right where so you can't just be like Um, like,
17:35
Speaker 1: hey man, I forgot to bring some water. Radical self
17:40
Speaker 1: inclusion or radical inclusion and they can be like radical
17:44
Speaker 1: self reliance jerk. Yeah, although gifting, it's a big one.
17:50
Speaker 1: Is a big one. Um. There, it is very much
17:52
Speaker 1: about giving things without it says gift thing does not
17:55
Speaker 1: contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.
17:58
Speaker 1: So it's not about trading even it's about giving. Right,
18:02
Speaker 1: I will give you her pies. You don't have to
18:07
Speaker 1: give me anything back. You mentioned the commodification. No, uh,
18:11
Speaker 1: commercial sponsorships or anything like that. Yeah, Like that's why
18:15
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be a music festival. It's too commercialized. Exactly,
18:19
Speaker 1: communal effort. It's all about collaborating. Hey man, I'm out
18:23
Speaker 1: of amount of nails for my big giant alien I'm
18:28
Speaker 1: building out of wood. Don't worry, man, I got nails.
18:31
Speaker 1: I got your back. Right, we'll just disassembled my giant
18:33
Speaker 1: alien out of wood and use the nails. From the
18:36
Speaker 1: civic responsibility, Um, we value the civil society. Community members
18:40
Speaker 1: who organize events assume responsibility for public welfare. Um that's
18:45
Speaker 1: a little tricky. I wonder what the law says about that. Well,
18:49
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying, like, like, what if someone got
18:51
Speaker 1: really hurt in someone's steam camp. I don't know, you know,
18:54
Speaker 1: I genuinely don't know. It says that the events have
18:58
Speaker 1: to be in accordance with the local laws, but they
19:01
Speaker 1: clearly break those a lot. You know, Yeah, there's a
19:05
Speaker 1: lot of laws broken at a burning Man, but they
19:11
Speaker 1: don't have their own laws, so technically there's no laws broken.
19:14
Speaker 1: And then the last two are participation and UM immediacy
19:20
Speaker 1: and the immediate experience is in many ways the most
19:22
Speaker 1: important touchdown of the culture is what they say. I
19:27
Speaker 1: like that participations in there. You can't just be like
19:30
Speaker 1: just some dude hanging out in the background, like staring
19:33
Speaker 1: at everybody that they want you to get involved, not
19:37
Speaker 1: only for your benefit, because you know, no one wants
19:39
Speaker 1: to be stared at while they're nude and on acid.
19:42
Speaker 1: It's a bump trip. Well, while we're on that, we
19:45
Speaker 1: should say that burning man is in certain areas are
19:49
Speaker 1: in X rated UM and they try to put up
19:51
Speaker 1: signage to indicate because there are families that go. I
19:54
Speaker 1: don't think there's a lot of families that go, but
19:57
Speaker 1: there are, and they try to indicate like, hey, this
20:00
Speaker 1: as a group sex camp. There's a newdist camp. Um,
20:04
Speaker 1: can't you read the sign? Yeah? Um, but keep your
20:08
Speaker 1: kids away. You might want to, though, is the recommendation, Like,
20:12
Speaker 1: if you're not super open minded, or if you are
20:16
Speaker 1: easily offended, or if you don't want to permanently damage
20:19
Speaker 1: your kids, or if you want to be a good parent, Yeah,
20:22
Speaker 1: then don't take your family, or you may not want
20:24
Speaker 1: to go at all. Like you really need to know
20:27
Speaker 1: what you're getting into here, folks, Yeah, because you're going
20:29
Speaker 1: to be thrust right into the center of a like
20:33
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people who all came to like party, big
20:36
Speaker 1: part of it. Like you can call it a social experiment,
20:39
Speaker 1: you can call it like, um, you know, performance art,
20:43
Speaker 1: and it is all those things, but it's also people
20:45
Speaker 1: partying all the time for like a week. Um, there's
20:49
Speaker 1: a lot of drugs and alcohol involved, yeah, and you
20:51
Speaker 1: know everything else. So if you're you know, not cool
20:56
Speaker 1: with that, then I would imagine Bernie Man would be
20:58
Speaker 1: a really bad place for you to go spend a week. Yeah.
21:01
Speaker 1: But if if you don't know that, and if you
21:03
Speaker 1: bought a ticket and made your way out there and
21:05
Speaker 1: you don't know that at that point, then you almost
21:07
Speaker 1: say you should go, Well, just I want to see that, dude.
21:10
Speaker 1: I think Julia Layton writes that, like, you don't have
21:13
Speaker 1: to go for a week, Like, if you're thinking about it,
21:15
Speaker 1: go test it out for a few days. Yeah, that
21:17
Speaker 1: that's what I would do. There's no way I would
21:19
Speaker 1: go for a week. And I don't think they sell
21:20
Speaker 1: any ticket other than for a week. So if you
21:23
Speaker 1: decide that you're gonna have like what, I really like this,
21:26
Speaker 1: I really like partying every single day, Like I'll stay
21:30
Speaker 1: the whole week. You can stay because you got your ticket. Um.
21:34
Speaker 1: And on the sex note, uh, there have been reports
21:38
Speaker 1: of sexual assaults and even a rape. Um. It is
21:42
Speaker 1: clearly not the Uh it's opposite of everything that Burning
21:47
Speaker 1: Man stands for. But there are always bad apples, and
21:50
Speaker 1: I think the general consensus is some dumb dudes show
21:54
Speaker 1: up thinking like, hey, it's just sex fest because everyone's
21:59
Speaker 1: free love, free love of you need to go to
22:00
Speaker 1: Sandals for that exactly. It's not really the case, like
22:05
Speaker 1: that stuff does happen, but it's just like it would
22:07
Speaker 1: happen in the real world. I mean, maybe people are
22:10
Speaker 1: a little more like loose with their morals, but there
22:14
Speaker 1: you know, been reports of like a woman like dancing
22:16
Speaker 1: nude and then guys like kind of descending on her,
22:19
Speaker 1: Like that's not okay, right, Just because it's Burning Man
22:22
Speaker 1: doesn't mean she's inviting you to touch her, you know
22:24
Speaker 1: what I'm saying exactly, And that raises a really excellent point. Like, um,
22:28
Speaker 1: Larry Harvey like from the beginnings has said like this
22:31
Speaker 1: is this is a social experiment, And I wonder what
22:34
Speaker 1: he was thinking it was going to be, because surely
22:38
Speaker 1: he's found that any utopia you create will eventually become
22:43
Speaker 1: poisoned by humans who go and take part in it.
22:46
Speaker 1: And I think it got I mean it grew way way,
22:49
Speaker 1: way bigger than they ever thought it would, which generally
22:51
Speaker 1: when the problems come, they've still capt it. Ah, there's
22:55
Speaker 1: still people who like can't go, so like they're not
22:57
Speaker 1: capping in it, like or one thousand, they chose fifty. Um,
23:03
Speaker 1: So you know, I wonder like what they expected or
23:05
Speaker 1: what they're seeing, the people who are like really a
23:09
Speaker 1: part of the Burning Man org what they're seeing that
23:13
Speaker 1: um that surprised them, or that they were like I
23:17
Speaker 1: knew this would happen. Yeah, I imagine ticket sales, I mean,
23:21
Speaker 1: if it's six hundred bucks a ticket. I know there's
23:23
Speaker 1: lower ones, but that's like thirty million bucks supposedly not
23:28
Speaker 1: for profit. Yeah, and I know they recently lumber. Lumber
23:32
Speaker 1: is extremely expensive. I know they transferred the holding to
23:35
Speaker 1: a different company recently. And there was like a a
23:39
Speaker 1: big battle between the original founders because money got involved,
23:44
Speaker 1: and I think the the original guy got kind of
23:46
Speaker 1: upset because people wanted to get paid that were on
23:48
Speaker 1: the board more money. Larry Harvey. Yeah, because there was
23:52
Speaker 1: another guy named Jerry James who has attributed as one
23:55
Speaker 1: of the founders with Larry Harvey. And what was he
23:58
Speaker 1: upset about? The financial I hadn't heard anything about that. Yeah,
24:02
Speaker 1: I think they. I should look this up more. They
24:04
Speaker 1: transferred it to a new company, um ah, burning Man
24:08
Speaker 1: Production LLC or something like a new nonprofit. I'm not
24:12
Speaker 1: sure how it all shook out, but I think some
24:14
Speaker 1: people cashed out that we're on the original board is
24:17
Speaker 1: how it went down. Hope, I didn't get that wrong.
24:20
Speaker 1: So let's say you want to go you're down with
24:22
Speaker 1: all this. You're like, sure, I'll get my sun screen
24:26
Speaker 1: out and put it in all the right places and
24:27
Speaker 1: take my clothes off, shave my head, paint myself green.
24:32
Speaker 1: Apparently that's futile because everybody gets covered in dust and
24:36
Speaker 1: turns gray. Really yeah, gross, isn't that weird? So the
24:40
Speaker 1: sunscreen just gets covered and I guess, and everybody turns
24:43
Speaker 1: into like this new race of people that have gray scan.
24:46
Speaker 1: I can't imagine anything more uncomfortable. Um, but let's say
24:50
Speaker 1: you do want to go. Uh, you've bought your ticket,
24:54
Speaker 1: Bring your sunscreen, bring your water. Lots of water. Yeah,
24:57
Speaker 1: you want to bring a gallon of water per day
25:00
Speaker 1: per person, at least just for drinking, plus another half
25:05
Speaker 1: gallon for like bathing and washing your clothes. If you're
25:08
Speaker 1: into that kind of thing. Um me, you need to
25:12
Speaker 1: bring more than that. Yeah, that's wheat out that gallon
25:14
Speaker 1: of water by noon. Yeah, And I mean, like that's
25:16
Speaker 1: serious stuff because they don't give you water at burning man,
25:19
Speaker 1: Like you might find some nice soul to do it,
25:21
Speaker 1: but like there, you should not come expecting them to
25:24
Speaker 1: give you water. That's right. Uh, it gets cold at
25:27
Speaker 1: night in the desert. If you've never been there, it's
25:28
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. It could be like a forty degree
25:31
Speaker 1: temperature swing. Then the course of a day to a night,
25:34
Speaker 1: so you gotta bring your warm clothes as well. You
25:36
Speaker 1: might not have someone to snuggle up to it. Burning Man,
25:40
Speaker 1: you know, I can't count on that. Um. And you
25:43
Speaker 1: can't just make a fire just anywhere either. You can't
25:45
Speaker 1: make a fire just anywhere. And you need to bring
25:47
Speaker 1: your own lights to um. They're obviously your lights everywhere,
25:49
Speaker 1: but you want your little flashlight in your head lamp
25:51
Speaker 1: and all like good stuff. Yeah, because it gets dark,
25:53
Speaker 1: gets really dark. And apparently people put our installations wherever
25:56
Speaker 1: they want. Yeah, and you may trip over them because
25:59
Speaker 1: a lot of those into Latians have rebar most of
26:02
Speaker 1: them do it there. Uh. And then um, you need
26:06
Speaker 1: to be able to be highly adaptable because, like you said,
26:11
Speaker 1: you might have a plan in place, but burning Man,
26:13
Speaker 1: you never know what's gonna go on, so you gotta
26:14
Speaker 1: be able to just kind of roll with it. That's
26:16
Speaker 1: sort of the idea. You know, if you're a rigid individual,
26:20
Speaker 1: you don't want to go to Burning Man, you're not
26:22
Speaker 1: gonna have a very good time, or your um will
26:26
Speaker 1: will break and you'll be like, Okay, I'm ready to
26:29
Speaker 1: just kind of let let things fly. That's true. I
26:33
Speaker 1: just watched that documentary on the Source Family. Have you
26:36
Speaker 1: heard of that one? They were a oh yeah, cult
26:39
Speaker 1: in the seventies and al I've read an article on
26:42
Speaker 1: them four Good Times. Yeah, it's very interesting. A lot
26:46
Speaker 1: of people they in fact, almost everyone they interviewed from
26:49
Speaker 1: today wasn't like, yeah, this was some bad cult. They
26:53
Speaker 1: were like they were still sort of living that life. Well,
26:56
Speaker 1: it's like paradise lost. They all moved down to Mexico
26:59
Speaker 1: and lived on the each and like were swimming or
27:01
Speaker 1: I thought it was Mexico. Now they were in l A.
27:03
Speaker 1: And they eventually went to Hawaii and that was kind
27:05
Speaker 1: of the end of them. And then so the leader
27:07
Speaker 1: had like a bad trip on the beach and then
27:10
Speaker 1: everything turned dark from that point on, right, And I
27:13
Speaker 1: think you're thinking something else, No, the Process Church. No, okay,
27:17
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the Process Now. This is the Source Family.
27:20
Speaker 1: I've heard of them. I don't know anything about them. Yeah,
27:22
Speaker 1: it's a new documentary. It's interesting. Okay, what's it called
27:26
Speaker 1: the Source Family? Okay, well, I'll watch that. You read
27:29
Speaker 1: the article in the forty Times about the Process. Was
27:32
Speaker 1: that the seventies too, It was like late sixties, early seventies. Man,
27:35
Speaker 1: those there were cults all over the place. All you
27:38
Speaker 1: had to be was like a halfway likable person with
27:40
Speaker 1: a steady supply of acid and like pretty much that's
27:43
Speaker 1: your own call. This guy was he was like six
27:45
Speaker 1: six and had this big gray beer and they're like
27:47
Speaker 1: you were the father, right, and he's like, I know. Yeah. Well,
27:50
Speaker 1: in their tenants, the first thing they had to do
27:52
Speaker 1: every morning was inhale six seconds from the the sacred Herb.
27:56
Speaker 1: So basically just get everyone stoned very first thing in
28:01
Speaker 1: the morning, wake and bake is what they call that. Yeah,
28:04
Speaker 1: but they're also a band. It's really interesting, this weird
28:06
Speaker 1: psychedelic music and stuff still around at the time. Well
28:10
Speaker 1: that the some of the surviving members have gotten back
28:12
Speaker 1: together now and are playing again. Maybe that's what I've
28:15
Speaker 1: heard of, is the band the source. I didn't realize
28:17
Speaker 1: they were a cult too. Yeah, they were cult first
28:20
Speaker 1: and foremost. It's like the Polyphonic Spree. It's exactly like
28:23
Speaker 1: who they ended up, sort of emulating White Robes and
28:27
Speaker 1: the whole deal. All right, that's a sidebar, but in
28:30
Speaker 1: the spirit of burning Man. You know, my buddy Toby,
28:33
Speaker 1: he was in the Spree. Yeah, he's like a tambourine player. No,
28:36
Speaker 1: he taught himself to play the thereman. Oh really. Yeah.
28:41
Speaker 1: He is the producer of a movie that's coming out
28:43
Speaker 1: in July or August with Rooney Mara and Casey Athlete
28:47
Speaker 1: called Embodied Saints. Yeah, I've heard of that. It's he's
28:51
Speaker 1: a producer of good for him. And yeah, he's been
28:54
Speaker 1: making his way through Hollywood, just like on like Sheer Grit. Yeah,
28:58
Speaker 1: and he if you're interested in Bonnie Prince billy fan,
29:01
Speaker 1: he did a producer a short film called Pioneer starring
29:04
Speaker 1: Bonnie principally that was really really good. Yeah, him and
29:06
Speaker 1: his collaborator David Lowry, two of them collaborat and make
29:09
Speaker 1: some good stuff. Way to go, guy, Not David Lowry
29:12
Speaker 1: from Cracker and Cambra Vanbethowin. No, no different guy. Yes,
29:17
Speaker 1: all right, okay, Well, if you want to learn more
29:19
Speaker 1: about Burning Man, go to Burning Man. You can also
29:22
Speaker 1: visit the Burning Man site, or you can check out
29:25
Speaker 1: our article on how Stuff works dot com. Just type
29:27
Speaker 1: burning Man in the search bar. Uh. And since I
29:30
Speaker 1: said search bar, it's time again for a message bar.
29:38
Speaker 1: And now it's time for listener mail. Did we even
29:41
Speaker 1: say that they burned the man at the end. That's
29:44
Speaker 1: the whole point. They burned the man on the last night.
29:46
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, so let's keep it going for a second.
29:49
Speaker 1: By the way, they burned the man on the last
29:51
Speaker 1: night the end, which is neat And I was thinking
29:53
Speaker 1: about this, like they have the man, so anywhere in
29:56
Speaker 1: camp you can see this giant man, and that I
30:00
Speaker 1: think has to really kind of add something like this
30:03
Speaker 1: week is gonna end. This man is going to die. Yeah,
30:07
Speaker 1: he We're going to burn him, and then after that
30:09
Speaker 1: this week is over and then we're all going to
30:12
Speaker 1: die eventually. Like just affect that the man and what
30:15
Speaker 1: everybody knows is going to happen to the man is
30:17
Speaker 1: looming over everybody the whole week. Like what effect does
30:20
Speaker 1: that have on you? Dude? You should go to Burning
30:22
Speaker 1: Man start a theme camp. Yeah, you know, like let's
30:26
Speaker 1: just talk about what we're gonna do to that poor man. Okay,
30:29
Speaker 1: I'd go. So that's the official end of the Burning
30:31
Speaker 1: Man episode. Now that's right. Now it's time for listener mail.
30:36
Speaker 1: That's right. I'm gonna call this, uh sort of a
30:38
Speaker 1: correction on the correction. Remember when we got the email
30:41
Speaker 1: about the American Red Cross denying uh men who have
30:45
Speaker 1: sex with men MSM to be able to get blood.
30:49
Speaker 1: This sort of explains that old more thoroughly guys have
30:53
Speaker 1: been catching up on stuff you should know. And after
30:54
Speaker 1: hearing the April ninth Platypus episode at to race Holmes
30:58
Speaker 1: to respond. Uh. Penelope was correct when she wrote that
31:01
Speaker 1: the American Red Cross permanently differs or turns away MSM donors. Um.
31:06
Speaker 1: It was incorrect over to describe this as a Red
31:08
Speaker 1: Cross policy and origin policy was determined by the U. S.
31:13
Speaker 1: Food and Drug Administration, not the Red Cross. The Red
31:15
Speaker 1: Cross is called the FDA ban medically and scientifically unwarranted
31:19
Speaker 1: even and seeks policy change because the FDA ban needlessly
31:23
Speaker 1: excludes healthy donors. I think we came down the Red
31:25
Speaker 1: Cross a little bit, so it really the FDA were
31:29
Speaker 1: mad at exactly. Uh. Please let your listeners know that's
31:32
Speaker 1: not the American Red Cross which is discriminating, but U S.
31:35
Speaker 1: F d A. The Red Cross is obligated by law
31:37
Speaker 1: to it here to the ban until the FDA can
31:39
Speaker 1: be convinced to change it. I have met some people who,
31:43
Speaker 1: though they are eligible to give blood, refused to donate
31:45
Speaker 1: because they object to the FDA ban the well intentioned,
31:47
Speaker 1: This refuse will only hurt people who need life saving blood.
31:51
Speaker 1: There are always better ways to pressure the FDA to
31:53
Speaker 1: change its policy. Um, big government, Am I right? Yeah?
31:58
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I hope everyone who's able to donate blood,
32:00
Speaker 1: platelets and other blood products will continue to do so. Cheers, Cat, nice,
32:07
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Cat. Yeah, I feel bad that we've
32:09
Speaker 1: got that wrong, or that we were misled by Penelope.
32:13
Speaker 1: Maybe Penelope didn't know herself. Now everybody knows it's the
32:16
Speaker 1: FDA's fault. That's right, So FDA change it. What's your problem?
32:21
Speaker 1: And then if someone from the FDA is getting right,
32:23
Speaker 1: so you know, you know it really is Glyndon Johnson's fall. Uh.
32:27
Speaker 1: If you want to lay something at the feet of
32:29
Speaker 1: somebody else, we want to know about that, especially if
32:32
Speaker 1: it clears something up that we got wrong. You can
32:34
Speaker 1: tweak to us at s Y s K podcast, join
32:36
Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
32:38
Speaker 1: You can send us an email The Stuff Podcast at
32:40
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com, and as always, joined us at our
32:43
Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot Com
32:50
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it.
32:53
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