EP 5 Otto Von Danger

Meet Otto von Danger, a veteran builder and Marine who offers a gritty, behind-the-scenes perspective on the evolution of Burning Man. Moving away from the typical "hippie" narrative, Otto describes his decades of involvement as a professional job rather than a spiritual pilgrimage, highlighting his technical role in constructing the iconic "Man" and elaborate installations like Burn Wall Street. The conversation explores the profound personal connections formed within the community while juxtaposing the event's early, intimate "reunion" atmosphere with its current status as a massive commercial festival. Beyond the desert, the text delves into Otto’s difficult transition to civilian life, touching on his struggle with the VA for disability benefits and his ultimate desire to find peace and socialized healthcare outside of America.

Otto's opinions are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or the show.

Transcript

They make the trek out to Burning Man for a week and a day. After a lot of work, there's a lot of play. Party party drama drama drama. b****, b****, b****. Year after year, they come back to scratch that itch. They all say their lives have been changed. After many years, lives have have been rearranged. That changes what this show is all about. You'll see the impact of Burning Man up and out. So sit back, relax, and cancel all your plans. These are the stories about the shadow of the man.

Hello and welcome to The Shadow of the Man. I'm your host, Andy. What? That Andy, today our guest is the one, the only Otto von Danger. Hi Otto. How you doing?

Hey everybody. I'm uh hanging in there.

So this podcast is not just for like insiders. You know, there's a fair amount of people I think like never been to Burning Man. Some people don't really know too much about it. Um in my mind, I have these two people. I kind of made up a woman and a man's sparkles. and Brony and you know they've never been to Bernie man. They don't know who everybody is. So it just like I don't know a couple of sentences like you know just like a brief like uh elevator pitch like what would you describe like your Burning Man experience in like involvement?

Uh a job.

Yeah. But what did you do? You know like when did you start?

I'm I'm a builder. I'm a structural engineer and I'm an artist. Uh in regards to Burning Man. have other powers too, but those are the ones that Burning Man were was after. Um, and uh, they knew about me through people like Russ Leslie and Andrew Sano in the East Bay.

Okay.

I met Barry in 95 and he tried to talk me into his hippie gathering out in the desert,

but there was no money. And being a builder, that's prime build territory for me. So, I didn't go to Burning Man until 2001.

Oh, okay.

That was my first one. But That's when they started paying me.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, I've never been a a a participant or whatever you want to call. I've never bought a ticket for Burning Man.

Ah.

I've only worked there.

That I didn't have plenty of fun.

Yeah. But you've done things like you you actually built the man, right? Like a couple of times.

I built the man. I was uh on the man a man-based crew uh both or one or the other for about 12 years.

And I seem to remember seeing video of one of the like drive by shooting ranges or something where it's like I thought like

in the early days guns were allowed at Burning Man in I think up until 2004 or five.

So yeah, we used to have gun uh orientated art. I do a little of that still on the side myself.

Yeah, being the notable one

because I thought Yeah, because in the video it seemed like you were kind of like the range master like yelling at everyone.

Well, I I range master when it's my art for sure. But yes, other people call upon me to be a range master. I'm a Marine, so uh yeah,

I'm very good at that.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Well, we'll we'll get into all.

Nobody's ever gotten hurt on any of my ranges, whether it be civilian or military.

I'm just kind of surprised that the drive by shooting range thing lasted that long. Like I thought it ended at like 96.

Thing I first got there, it was still relatively small. It was like 10,000 people in 2001.

Yeah. Yeah.

And the 2002 was like maybe 15 12 to 15,000. A little bit bigger, but not much bigger. Yeah.

It wasn't until about 2004 that it started really exploding numbers wise.

Yeah.

So when it was smaller, we all really knew each other. If you don't know the person like verbatim, you knew them through somebody else.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

There was a lot different. It was like going to a reunion

more. Now it's you know you Well, you don't know anybody.

Yeah.

But back then, we all pretty much knew each other. And I'm one of those kind of people. I walk in the room and everybody knows I'm there. So,

yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, my my first year was 96 and I was living in San Francisco. Was the same thing just like word of mouth like friends who was like my one friend Sharon just like it's a British like black British woman was like it's like you have to get a banning man. It's brilliant. You know, I was like what? And I didn't even know like what it was, you know? Like we just like I like said in this the podcast before it's like you know I just got like a photocopy of the survival guide and we basically just read the directions part and not even entirely like ah me and my brother was like ah let's just go you know didn't know what it was and but it was incred but anyway it's not about me this is about you so uh yes this is the auto von danger show so where does it all begin with uh Otto

hi Norway 1967

oh really so oh so you're actually They want to put in a camp.

Oh, how do you build a wall with Norway? Huh? Just checking.

I got here because my mother remarried uh an American. Came here in 75.

I have no I was a little kid still.

Yeah. Yeah. So, where'd you move to? Where'd you grow up?

So, well, like I said, the beginning of my childhood, my little my my I guess you call toddler ages were in Norway.

Okay.

But, uh by the time I was six, Uh, I lived in Greece for a summer, lived in uh, Italy for about eight months, lived in England for a year, and then it was off to Queens, New York.

Ah, Queens. Uhhuh.

Yeah. I landed there and I looked at Queens, which at the time was, you know, rubble, rubble, building on fire, rubble, rubble, building with way too many people stuffed into it, nothing working on fire. And I was like, what? What did we land in the London Blitz? And what year was it? Was it like 70s or something?

75. Summer of Sam. I learned about killers and mafia car bombings and all kinds of stuff when I got to America.

Oh yeah.

Racism.

Oh yeah.

10th power.

Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I actually I grew up in New Jersey. I I was born in 71. So it's like Yeah. Same same area, same time.

Yeah. You remember how hot it was that summer then?

Oh god. Yeah. I was like four years old, you know. But

yeah, I been in Greece and Italy and I was like, "What the heck? What's going on? America's not supposed to be this hot."

You landed Queens. Wow. All right.

Yeah. I lived in Queens only for like a year or two and then it was off to Brooklyn. Too far.

Okay.

And then uh my later teenagehoods we move moved up state to Rochester.

Oh, all right.

Which wasn't much different, by the way.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Rochester, but and Queens and and Brooklyn are pretty much, you know, Besides Queens and Brooklyn being in next to all those other cities, there's no difference. The the racism, the the

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well,

different had different kinds of people. And if you weren't one of those kinds of people, unless you were a Viking,

you didn't go.

I was an anomaly. So, uh I was one of those group people that never fit in any group, but all the groups kind of accepted me.

Yeah, I I I can actually kind of relate to that. They can like go anywhere, just walk in. People can like give you the nod and like, "Oh, hey, brother. You belong here." And you're like, "Uh, yeah."

Well, it helps being, you know, a 6'4, 250 pound Viking. Most people

try to stay on your better side. But, uh, I've also learned from that most people are are fear fearful of me, so I go out of my way to show that them that I'm a soft and squishy.

Yeah. Yeah. Gentle giant. You know, you got to piss me off in order to get the violence out. So, just don't piss me up and you'll be fine. And I mean like extremely piss me off. I don't mean hurt my feelings.

Yeah. So yeah. So you grew up so like where we at? Rochester. Uh do you like you graduate high school there? Did you do you go to college or did you go into the Marines?

I I was offered a scholarship but even with the scholarship was just I I wasn't going to go into $80,000 of debt.

Yeah.

For a job that was you know at that point Reagan was in power and America was going downhill as fast as it could.

Oh yeah. So I I I skipped on the I I already knew I had like 20 college credits from AP courses.

Oh, okay.

By time by the time I was ninth grade, I could have graduated high school. I stayed in for the uh tax credit.

Oh.

And just took AP courses for the next three years.

Wow.

Uh hence why I was offered a scholarship. Uh I also played sports. You know, I was good, but I wasn't like, you know, going to go be professional or anything. I could have met maybe ing. But back then the Olympics,

if you were from a if you were an immigrant, you couldn't compete in the Olympics.

Oh, really?

Country you living in. Now you can, but back then you could not. So

my cross country and uh bathlon uh ski aspirations were cut short.

Oh, when was the last time you went skiing?

Well, now I'm so disabled I can't walk. So it's been a long time.

Yeah. I think the last time I went ski was 20 years. Oh.

Oh.

Well, anyway, I didn't want to go off topic. But so anyway, so um so when did you

So you I think you graduated high school what like 80s or something.

Yeah.

Yeah. So then uh so

85 84.

Oh okay. So then yeah. What h what did you do after that?

Uh I hung out for about a year realized if I kept and I was working and whatnot but you know my life wasn't going anywhere and I was partying and hanging out with that group going to Undead Tour and stuff like that. And I realized law of averages, if I keep doing this, I'm going to end up in prison

or dead. So I said, I got to get out of here and I went in the Marine Corps. You know, being a Viking, getting on a boat going the other side of the planet to either f*** or fight people. Sounds like right up my alley. I'm more interested in the meeting the people than I am the the fighting them, but I'm good at both.

Yeah. So that was what, like mid later 80s marines? Uh 95 through I was in the Marines till 92. I was involuntarily extended for the first golf war.

Okay.

Two f****** years.

Pardon my French.

So that's what like seven years or so.

Six and a half.

Six and a half. Wow. Are you a combat veteran?

Yeah.

Oh wow. Wow.

Most theaters but

some of it I can. I was in Panama just cause

I did a lot of time in South and Central America. I can't really quote on I was kicked out of El Salvador for uh not flying orders and threatening all of them. They wanted to do some bad stuff. Again, I can't really disclose it.

Yeah. And then uh I remember seeing something you posted online, tell me what's the difference between uh a hard landing and a crash.

Okay. A crash is when everybody dies in the helicopter. Pilots crew and anybody that's riding on the helicopter. A hard landing is if anybody survives. So if one person survives, it makes it a hard landing.

Even if everybody else dies.

Wow.

But if if if everybody survives, then it's a hard landing. Or I Yeah.

Well, yeah. Well, if everybody dies, it's a crash.

It's a crash. Everybody has to die. So I was in third three hard landings obviously because I'm still here.

Yeah. Wow.

But they were crashing.

Wow.

I was There was four of us that survived. The first one I was in. The second one, everybody survived, but we shouldn't have. Uh, and the third one, I was a soul survivor.

Wow. Wow. That's That's heavy. Heavy. So then, uh, let's see. You got out, what' you say, like 96.

No, I got out right after the golf war. So 92.

92. So yeah. So uh, what happened to you after that where'd you go?

Well, I went up I moved uh I had some friends from the Marines that were in the Santa Rosa area, so I moved up to Sebastapool, started uh get back into construction. Like I said, I'm a builder. Uh

and a couple months into that, uh I had this uh it felt like I pulled a muscle in my shoulder really bad.

Uhhuh.

And so they sent me to the doctors and did all kinds of tests on me and they could not figure out what the hell was wrong with me. And so they said, "I should go to the VA." And I did. And the VA said, "At the time, Golf War syndrome was still not even a thing."

Yeah.

And they basically told me because of h how bad my uh symptoms were that I probably didn't have more than I wouldn't see 94. I might see 93.

You mean the year or the age?

Yeah, they gave me a year.

Say the age it's like I don't think I can live past 94 like that sounds good to me but oh really like that's amazing like here

and uh and so I sat around for a year in pain they didn't know what to do they you know they tried to do some surgery on my shoulder and that didn't do anything and shots of uh what do they call that uh

steroids or something?

Yes, it's like a steroid uh and they they shot me in the spine and that didn't do anything either and So they put me on barbituates and tried to send me to physical therapy.

Like, hey, have fun.

Lucky for me, I don't like barbituates, so I stayed away from the heroin pills. I mean, I I would get them, but most of the time I would uh they would just sit in my closet or I'd give them away to friends that needed them.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is a good thing because I'd be dead right now if I took had taken all the pills they wanted me to take.

Wow.

Drunk before I died, too.

Yeah. But I mean, it's just with the whole You know,

well, you got to understand the VA's prime motive is to kill you so they don't have to pay you.

Well, yeah.

I mean, I'm not I'm not joking. I'm not being facicious. Right now, I'm still fighting the VA to get my 100%. I'm at 90 rating, which pays half of what 100 rating pays.

Really?

And they've been doing evaluations. Every doctor I go to agrees that I am 100% f***** up. And they are still d****** around with giving me my 100% set. So, like I can't afford to live.

Wow.

And if I did not have the support network, the friends and family I've met,

you know, through Burning Man and other other things I've done in my life.

Yeah.

I I'd be dead.

Wow.

And again, that's like I said, the the VA is set up to make your life so miserable and unlivable that you want to kill yourself. This is why 22 Marines or 22 veterans kill themselves. every single day.

Really? Wow.

Yeah.

That's incredible. But no, like you said, you have a great like support network. A lot of friends, you know.

So that's why I'm still here.

Yeah. No, but to me that's always been kind of like the the thing that first attracted me to Burning Man and the thing that's kind of kept me coming back was what I call the connection. You know, it's just it's a

Yeah. That of all the things Burning Man uh has influenced me, the best thing is the connections I've met.

All right.

Well, We'll get to that part a little later. But um

yeah. So I guess we're at 92. You're out of the military. Uh so you go back to upstate New York or what do you do for No. I I came down to

That's right. San with some friends I used to tour with in the dead.

Uhhuh.

Uh I worked some uh you know construction here in the Bay. Uh I did do a couple I went out and helped a friend out in Montana for about eight months. drove semis while I was up there.

All right.

That was a nightmare. I I I loved It was beautiful up there. The Flathead Indians are awesome. If you're ever up there, make sure you go show give them some love. They'll give you some love back.

Oh, yeah.

But but the uh Anglo-Saxons up there are horrible.

I can imagine. Yeah.

Say the least. And they're all men.

Oh yeah.

It's like 20 man men to every woman up there.

So it's not a place to go find the love of your life unless you're a woman. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And then uh so then how did you meet uh like the the Bernie man like how the Burning Man the circle kind of like

Well, I guess I was working construction and I knew people like Andrew Sonu and Russ Leslie and I was building s*** out on the Berkeley peers and setting it on fire. Burning rat was one.

Oh.

Um and uh or Flaming Rat, I forget what we named it, but anyways, we just like constructed it, set it on fire, booked, watched the fire department response. Anyways, word got out that I build crazy s*** and uh and so I was introduced to Larry on a fake weed deal.

And the whole time he wasn't interested in the we smoked it, but he wasn't interested in like, you know, setting up any deal. He was interested in the building I did and was trying to talk me into coming out of this thing called Burning Man. Well, maybe he should have bought more weed from you and then he would have gotten you out there earlier.

Yeah. Well, I wasn't really a weed seller. I mean, I would help I would help a friend out if if they were short, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh Yeah. All right. Well, I guess this kind of brings us up into your Burning Man era, right? So, 2001. So, so you just basic you basically been staffed the the entire time, right? You never bought a ticket.

Never bought a ticket.

Yeah. Yeah, I actually went back this year as the first time in like 13 years and I was thinking about it and I was and actually I bought a ticket and I was like when was the last time I actually bought a ticket like I was I couldn't even remember I was like I think like 2003 or something you like I don't know you know like I mean anyway so yeah so

we used to have a joke uh $200 changed my life.

Yeah. Yeah. Well that's kind of what this show They come in and they buy like the tickets were like $200 back then

and or 180 or whatever and uh they'd come in and they'd have that experience and then they'd want to be part of it and not just uh you know their theme camp why they want to be part of the or

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean I don't know. I kind of divide people up into kind of four groups. It's like I think there's a good amount of people like especially well nowadays you know past decade or so you know like um I think there's a good amount of people just kind of bucket list thing, you know, and they're just kind of like, oh, you know, check it off and go.

Isn't Isn't the scene that I mean, there's some people of that scene still there, but that scene is is not it's not that's not Burning Man anymore, where Burning Man used to be pretty much just that scene.

I think there's like

I'm not against it or anything, you know, but it's a festival now.

Yeah.

I mean, I I think there's different like groups, different communities, but yeah, but I mean I can Yeah, I break it down to the

playing motors, which I've worked with many times. are still out there.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And they're a great group of guys and gals. But yeah, so I mean I think you have a good amount of like lucky.

Angel of the Apocalypse and Serpent Mother.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But um No, I think you're probably one of the few like like I said like most people go to kind of just check it out and be kind of tourist and then like a smaller percentage is like oh they kind of like will go back. a couple years, but you know, if you don't get involved, you know, after three years kind like ah been there, done that. It's only the people who actually get involved like you know, you volunteer or you become staff or you do a theme camp or an art project or or whatever like those are the people tend to to kind of go for longer. And then, you know, then there's the rar rarified few who like, oh, you know, if this has been their their bragging right thing, which is kind, oh, I've been a burning man last 18 Bernie mans. I'm so cool. Yeah. Yeah. There's a fair amount of ego flying around.

Go somewhere else.

Like even the if you like the Burning Man thing, there's a regional burns all around the world and they're more like what Burning Man used to be.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, that's for me like the magic is like the interpersonal interactions like it's the the connections and like you get that more I don't know a more quality exper I don't know what the word is but uh like in a smaller smaller setting. have a different experience, you know, according to who they're with and what's going on at that particular time,

whether you're the bigger full of Burning Man or one of the smaller regionals.

So, you it's hard to say, well, this is good for that and that's good for that. You can find both in both. It's just, you know, your chances at Burning Man because it's so much bigger of running into something. Yeah. Higher. But running into more people, you know, and getting more intimate contact is probably more like going to happen at the regionals. Of course, you can also get that at Burning Man, too.

Yeah. Well, also Bernie Band, like the early days, too. You know, when it's like, oh, there's only 5,000 people there, you know. It's like, yeah, I'm a lot different than like, you know, 90,000 people.

And they say 90,000. It's probably 15,000 on top of that of just people that are affiliated with the or whether they actually work or not.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, how do they do the numbers?

Uh, all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think in terms of the numbers, what I saw was I think 2019 was like the the peak year. It was somewhere like 80 90,000 something. I think this year I don't think the numbers are quite in yet, but it was

year hasn't sold out and that's probably because the last year's rain out.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm sure that not that that it went successfully this year that it'll be sold out again next year.

Yeah. Well, I mean the weather was fantastic. I mean it was perfect. I mean During the days it was like like 85 and the high hottest it was was like 95 and like at night it was like 55. It was it was beautiful. It was like only one white out like in the middle of the week, you know, that was even that long. And like the whole rest of the time it was just kind of just like nice, not too hot, not

the exact opposite of every one of my Burning Man experiences.

So I don't know, maybe next year people can be like, "Oh, Bernie Ban's awesome. The weather's perfect. All all the time and then you know

that's what will happen. They'll show up and it'll be some you know but remember it's not an adventure until something goes wrong.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Exactly. Can't have too much fun.

So yeah. So how many

fun in surviving some abysmal situation with your friends and then having that camaraderie though or uh commiseration.

Yeah. Yeah. Well

we survived that rainstorm and blah blah blah and we fed each other. Yeah. That was so Great. You're looking back on it, of course, fondly, but while you're in it, you're going, you know, after that.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, do you see any parallels to serving in the military? You know, it's like

there was a few of us for recon range at Bingham. Uh, one just passed cowboy Carl.

Oh, yeah.

And then there was Head Hunter Eric, uh, who was also DPW. Uh, not Carl's dead now, but me and Uh me and Eric no longer go to Burning Man, but uh yeah, one of the things that drew us was was the you know the dangerousness of it.

One thing a lot of our US combat veterans chase is the adrenaline,

right? That's why a lot of people get into heavier drugs that are combat veterans is they're trying to find that same high. You won't find it with drugs.

It's just adrenaline.

Huh. So, uh, how many times did you build the man base and build or the man?

The man and the man base. It was 12 times. I didn't build both every year, though. Some years I only worked on the man base. Some years I only worked on the man. Uh, most years I worked on the man. I think minus one year

out of 12.

And I think I worked on like six or seven man bases.

And so, how long would you be up there on the plot for each year?

I would go up to build the man at the the uh end of June and

up at the ranch there until October.

October. Wow. And so were you actually you weren't like just on the ply the whole time, right? You weren't like up at the ranch.

No, no, no. I uh Well, we used to we'd be out on the ranch and then we'd get out on the fly early, but then because of rules and whatnot, they did the uh trailer park, but I never stayed in the trailer park because I got along with the locals and I just stayed with them. Ah. again. That's part of my Viking superpower.

I can go anywhere in the world and make friends pretty quickly.

Oh, that's awesome. All right. Um, so yeah. So then what? So what was your last year like? Uh

2012 was my last year.

2012.

Yep.

Wow. So uh what uh what caused you to stop going?

Uh well um first of all I was over for the event, the spectacle of Burning Man. I'd been over it for about six or seven years at that point.

Uh, you know, to me it was just the same party over and over again. A bunch of people driving around with glow sticks in the dark

in a circle looking for something to do at Burning Man. Like literally there's something to do 10 feet any direction and still driving around in circles. What?

But uh but but I still like going there and building art. You know, I'm an artist and uh So 2012 I knew it was going to be my last year. At that point I could barely walk and I wanted to be, you know, one last big hooya and I did Burn Wall Street.

Ah, what was that? 2011 was my last year.

2012. It was uh five buildings. I mean buildings, they were buildings. Uh the New York Stock Exchange. I had Goldman Sucks, Mel. Uh, Bank of Unamerica and Chaos Manhattan.

Ah, I think I've seen pictures of that. Yeah,

you probably have.

It's funny because like I remember seeing pictures of that and you're like I burnt. So picture you and you're like I burnt this or I built this and like and then for some reason I thought it was the um God was it from 96 Helco, you know, they did built a bunch of buildings and then like they burnt them down for

Well, HCO was one building and it was red and it looked similar to my Bank of Unameric. So a lot of people.

See, that's why I thought like I was like, "Oh, auto goes like way back." Like, ah, all right.

Well, I knew John Law back then. I didn't go to Burning Man, but I knew those guys. Hung out with him. Not at Burning Man.

Yeah. Do you see any of those guys still like that?

I rarely see anybody. And of course, Larry's past now, so

I generally don't see them. I I don't see much much of anybody. Uh I'm I'm disabled, so I'm pretty much trapped. at home. Every once in a while, I'll venture out to a little gathering. I don't like going to big Burning Man gatherings because I just get swarmed.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I'm not famous, but I'm Burning Man famous.

That's funny. So, yeah. So, uh so what is your your shadow of the man? Like, how is uh what's Brett Man done to you? Point to the doll where it touched you, you know?

And it was a love hate. relationship the whole time. Um, I'm really good at building s***. I'm a good structural engineer.

Uh, it's why they brought me out there. But they didn't want to hear it.

And none of them had not none of them, but pretty much none of them there. Like I said, there was there were good builders like Sono and and uh Leslie, Russ Leslie, but the people they had in charge had no clue.

Um, and when Mr. Clean was running the DPW, he just let me do my thing. But he got in an incident and Marian took over and when she did, me and her did not see eye to eye on anything.

Oh yeah.

And it was a it was a tough couple years, but she realized more and more that everything I suggested to her was correct. And so she started she turned around and then we ended up being good friends and she listened to me a lot.

Uh but the people that they put in charge of like the DPW or different, you know, parts of the org I had bumped heads with because they didn't know how to build anything and they have were telling me how to do it. The big problems burn wall street on that. They caught that made that project $60,000 more than it should have been. Wow.

Just to mess with me. So yeah, when I left I was done with burning.

But like you said, you know, like uh we were talking about earlier. Um it's like you have a great support group, you know, you have a lot of friends. I mean, it's like uh yeah, I mean, Bernie Band like, you know, I don't know. Something about it, it's just like it creates these like connections between people. I mean, some people it's like, you know, you

think about Burning Man. So, Burning Man is is is a bunch of If you were out in the real world, there'd be a bunch of different circles. You'd have your goth people and your artist group and your hip group. and your, you know, braver group and various other groups and they would never really overlap at all. And you go to Burning Man and they all overlap.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so you would meet a whole bunch of people and that you would not normally meet and those connections would make the art and the experiences even more intense.

Yeah. I mean, maybe it takes like

And I still have, you know, hundreds of people that uh, you know, I consider friends.

Mhm. met from the Burning Man and then and you know every once in a while I pop back in my life or they help me out my moments of need because I'm disabled.

Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, uh anything uh anything else you want to say or you want to any plugs or uh Oh, actually I wanted to ask you, did you find a roommate yet?

I have not found a roommate yet. So, I might be homeless and dead here soon.

Oh, well, talk about that.

Like I said, I'm in the of trying to get this 100% and it's been going on for about a year now on all these eval apparently the B administration privatized the VA valve system system so it is a total cluster f*** nightmare right now if it comes in time like I could wake up the the first next month and have a whole couple hundred thousand dollar in my bank account and have that 100% or it might be six months from now I don't know

wow it's been a year now I don't know uh so I don't know if I'm gonna If I don't find a roommate, I don't know if I'm gonna have a place to live next.

So, how can people get in touch you? They say someone's listening to this and was like, "I'll be your roommate."

Uh, they could uh they could contact me at auto een. That's o tenyahoo.com is my email.

Okay.

Uh or I'm on Instagram as a danger. All right. I'm pretty much blocked for most social media because I'm anti-Nazi and uh

yeah I remember like when you're on Facebook

what you got act run by you know Nazi f****** Elon Musk and then you have uh uh Facebook that's run by uh Zionist Nazi what's his name robot boy.

Yeah.

So they they hate people that that stand up against you know violence and evil because they're violent and evil. Yeah.

So, like I'm blocking Facebook and X, but it's not a big drain. I'm still on Instagram. They mess with me. Like right now, I can't make comments. They try to uh say I was a spam bot day and block me and I proved that I was a human being. And I'm like, why are you even trying to do this? And so, yeah, we live in a in a world where disinformation is king and information is censored.

So, just To be clear, the whole you said like there you have you at 90% but you need to be at 100. So does that mean like uh 100%.

The percentages are kind of weird. Let's call it a 90 rating.

Uhhuh.

Okay. So I'm at a 90 rating for disabled, which means I'm 110% disabled.

In order to get a 100 rating, I have to prove that I'm 135% disabled.

Okay.

Okay. This is Congress math here. Okay.

And and they do this intentionally, like I said. Their goal is to kill as many of us veterans they can so they don't have to pay anything. Um they love to send us war but they do not want to deal with us afterwards.

Uh um and then 90% pays about 50% of what a 90 rating pays about 50% of what a 100 rating is. That's the difference. Even though it's only 10% it's not 10% difference on how much money they give you.

That's weird.

It's 50%. So I get about $2,100. a month and my rent, which is cheap, and about $1,600 a month.

Wow.

Okay. That's not including cell phone, internet, power bill.

Yeah.

So, I go hungry every month.

Ah, well, you like you said, it's like you have a lot of friends, good support, you know, like uh we'll be there for you, help you out. Hopefully, you'll

hopefully I get this 100% I'll be able to go back to helping other people out.

Yeah. Well, hopefully you'll get a roommate soon, too. Right. Didn't you say you you uh

Well, my plans are if I get this 100% I am leaving America.

Oh, really? Where you going to go?

It's a fourth world s*** hole country. I'm just done with it.

Yeah. Where you going to go?

Every other country in the world, even Kanye now, okay, they were the last other hold out has socialized medicine.

Every country in the world, which makes America a fourth world country.

Yeah.

And we don't do anything to help our own people. All we do is spend money on police to harm our own people or imprison them and make them slaves because that is the way slavery is still legal here in America and do wars to steal other people's resources.

There's no freedom here.

Yeah. Well, where do you think you'll move to?

Go to a free country. Go to Norway or Iceland or even Germany or France is better than here.

You still have citizenship. in Norway?

No, but I could get it back, but not till I get my 100% because I'm disabled. That they would taking me on as I mean maybe they would, but they definitely would take me once I have my 100% because I'll be pulling in enough money that that I won't be a drain on their system.

All right. Well,

and so that's my intent.

Hopefully that'll work out. You still speak Norwegian or

sit there and never come back to the s*** hole again?

Yeah. Do you speak Norwegian?

Uh, no, not anymore. I'm I'm working on on on on getting it back because remember I was a little kid so I knew freight, you know.

Yeah,

my vocabulary was very limited. So I'm working on getting it back.

I know a lot of old Norse because I practice I'm a Viking. I practice and be I practice uh the old ways.

Okay.

So I do know some of the language, the older version of the language,

the one that nobody speaks anymore unless you're a ceremony.

You're gonna show up people like where's this guy? He just came from out of time or something, you know.

Exactly. I am. I'm I'm a I'm a a fluke.

Well, you are a Burning Man treasure. I say national treasure, but maybe Black Rockck treasure. And uh No, I mean, um one of the reasons why I do this podcast is like I I mean, I originally started it cuz like I you know, I I thought I knew like, you know, we have a bunch of friends who are burners who've done amazing things and and it's like I thought I knew them. You know, it's like, no, there's always more to the story. And I don't know, there's this whole concept of like the shadow of the man, you know, it's like, uh, Bernie man does change people, you know, and they have the one thing people always say is like, "Oh, Bernie man changed me." The one common thing everybody says like, "Oh, it's changed me. It's changed me." But I'm like, "Okay, after like, you know, 10, 20, 30 years, what?" Like, what exactly does that mean? You know, and it's not the it's not the same, you know, like everyone has

that change have happened with or without burning, too.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, there's some people at regionals never even been to Black Rockck City and like they're burners, you know.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, I guess now it's kind of

one last thing I add. My favorite thing that I built out Burning Man was not Burn Wall Street. It was not the man or, you know, the crude Awakening or any of the major pieces I worked on. It was a chair I built in 2011.

I figured I'm gonna take it off here and just build something I could do in a week. And I built a a 35 foot tall basically lawn chair and it had carrying rudders under it like the Egyptian pharaohs.

Oh yeah.

And I call it the hippie raver powered lawn chair and it was sitting at at dust b**** which I think was like 8 o'clock at that that year somewhere 7:30 8 o'clockish.

Okay.

And we just sit on that chair the whole time having a great time. Made a couple of uh uh some magazines and

Oh, I've definitely seen pictures of that. Yeah. Did you like a ladder built that didn't take so long? It wasn't less. It was, you know, the money it was less than 10 grand. It was

and it was super fun and I didn't have to kill myself to do it.

Yeah.

And everybody loved it.

Yeah. Well, sometimes like some of the best art is just like some of the more simple things.

I mean, I remember one year early on just seeing these weird lights like out in a playa and they're just kind of just going in this weird pattern. I couldn't figure out like we just we walk towards it and you know we get up on it and uh it's basically this was like in the like late 90s right so uh I think it was like helicopter tailrotor and at the end of each one was a old you like a tube TV and and the each TV was just like playing static and it was all like wired up to it you know and it was just it was kind of a low RPM you It was like whoosh whoosh whoosh, you know, like and there was just it was a very simple thing up on this pole and had this like little electric motor. That was it, you know, but like from across the playa, you know, it just made this like crazy just kind of like uh visual like light thing. And I don't know. I mean I that's what I love about Burning Man. It's just I mean some some of like the simple things can be

there was the uh the human zapper in 2001. Uh big daddy that uh built this cage the rified it. Inside of it was uh a bunch of really cold beer and we'd sit there on our coolers and we'd electrify it. The hippies could reach there was no way you could reach in there and get a beer without zapping yourself. And so they'd spend hours zapping themselves and we'd back them all off, turn it off, refill the beer with cold beer.

I go back and laugh.

That's awesome. Well, Otto, thank you. Thank you so much. This has been a pleasure. Um hopefully I'll get the episode up uh by like this weekend or so and um yeah, it's great talking to you.

Cool. Uh yeah, send me a a link or whatever. So

Oh, definitely. We'll do. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much, Otto, and I'll uh talk to you soon.

All righty.

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