EP 23 Lisa Scheinkopf

Episode 23 with Lisa Scheinkopf (AKA Sassy Cat), an Arizona-based Burning Man veteran and Regional Contact. The conversation traces Sheinkopf’s evolution from a first-time attendee in 2011 to a community leader who manages the "Ignited States" theme camp, which provides interactivity through lighthearted events like "mimosas and bad parental advice." A significant portion of the intertview focuses on the logistics and challenges of regional organizing, specifically the Arizona community’s experience purchasing land and navigating tensions with local neighbors over noise and dust. Scheinkopf highlights a unique turning point where nearby city officials, recognizing the positive economic impact and low crime rates associated with the events, began competing to host the burners. Ultimately, her story serves as a testament to the transformative power of the ten principles, illustrating how the festival's culture of gifting and communal effort can successfully bridge the gap between temporary desert celebrations and permanent default world communities.

You can reach her at arizona@burningman.org

azburners.org

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 Show. I am your host, Andy. You're in luck. It's that Andy. Today our guest is Lisa Sheinkopf. Is that how you spell pronounce it? Sheinkopf.

Perfect.

Yeah. And if you were German like my mother-in-law, you would have the up there, but I that takes too long. So,

so uh we were just saying so 2011 was your first year Burning. So, uh first year going to Block Rock City, I should say. Uh so, what got you to go to Burning Man?

So, My husband and I had heard about it. We actually lived in the Bay Area in the early 2000s. We heard or actually in the early 90s through a while. We heard about it and it was like this just seems really cool. Um but time flew, life happened. Our oldest daughter ended up going with a couple of friends in 2009 and which gave us the heightened like, okay, now we've got to do it. And so in 2011, we finally made it. Um, we went with uh we were about a dozen friends. Our daughter and her partner went also. We decided it would be best if the four of us didn't camp together, but we saw each other every day, and being mom and dad, we fed them every day, too. But, um, so there were about a dozen of us friends. Three of them had been there before. Um, one of them actually subsequently turned into a regional contact for Chicago. You may remember, hey, you Kelly. Um, Yeah,

his name his name was Rich Kelly and and his ply name became Heyou and eventually he legally changed his name to Heyou.

Really?

Yeah, that's funny.

Um Yeah. And so we, you know, looking back on the photos from that, it's like, oh my god, the the stuff that we didn't know, like, you know, the carport that we had used the strings that kind of came with the carport instead of really battening down the hatches. The stuff that we had on the tables that were outside. We were so lucky. It was a good weather year that Now, it's funny because even like many years in, like I don't know how many years I was in, like maybe six or seven and like we got a carport and we came and we set it up and and and the weather was beautiful and it was nice and there was no wind and we were just kind of hanging out. It's like, oh, we're at Birdie Man like why should we stake it down? We have all the time in the world, you know, and we're just going to

and then the winds kick up, you know,

carport stories. The following year we arrived And um and and Rich and Andy, the guys who got there before us, uh when we arrived to camp, we saw them running down the street chasing the carport that they were trying to put up. Uh and then and then fast forward to 2 years ago, um in the camp that I lead, uh the folks who were responsible for strike for taking for that part of strike, taking down the carports, um didn't realize that they should really take the roof off or totally loosen up the roof before before taking down the legs and the stakes. And all of a sudden, the carport flew across sea and impaled itself into the district bike parking lot.

Like it didn't impale a person.

I know. We were Yeah. Just serendipity. It was cuz it literally flew across 9:00.

Yeah. Just imagine how many injuries like probably should be occurring. burning.

Maybe two that we just nobody knows about.

Wow. So, yeah. So, 2011 you go with like about a dozen people from the Bay Area, you said.

No, no, we're all from Phoenix. Rich was from Chicago, but the rest of us are from Phoenix.

Oh, okay. Do you guys How do you guys go from Phoenix? Do you actually drive or

drive? It's a

How long a drive?

You drive straight through. It's a really really long day. In those days, we would take two days to go.

Um Every year Danny and I would increase the distance on our first day so that we could get there faster on the second day. Um but last year we did it totally slow way and um now we take two nights with the last night being an overnight in Fernley so we could get all of our groceries done, get in early in the morning and uh

makes it really smooth.

Yeah, that's a really good idea.

Excuse me. But yeah, it's it's a probably if you're not towing anything It's maybe a 12 to 14 hours straight through if you don't make any stops. If you don't have to ever stop for gas or do anything like that, but it's really about 16 17 hours. And it's a lot of driving.

Yeah, cuz 12 to 14 you're just like, "Oh yeah, that's like like Google Maps just like straight drive." Like it was funny cuz um I'm uh planning on going back again this year and my brother lives in San Francisco and so like I was like, "Oh, I'll fly in and like you pick me up at the airport and we'll just drive straight from there." And and I was like looked at a Google Maps like it says it's 6 hours or 15 minutes, you know? And it's like, yeah,

that like eight or 10, you know, cuz it's like the closer you get, like the more it will slow down,

right? And then none of that counts the time that you spend in the 10 m hour zone or the 5 miles an hour getting to your camp.

Yeah. Or just like, oh, look, Indian tacos on the side of the road.

Exactly. Exactly. Oh, great. So, last year didn't scare you away. You're coming back again. Well, no. It's funny because I mean I keep saying this. I It was just like, "Okay, not this year. Not this year. Not this year." And then I don't know what it was, but just like it's just a progression of people are just like, "Are you coming to Burning Man? You coming to Burning Man? You coming to Burning Man?" I'm just like, "No, no, no, no." And then it was like two people in one day and they're like, "What?" And they were genuinely like like shocked and surprised like, "No, you have to come to Burning Man." And they started thinking about it and I I was like, "All right,

awesome. Okay,

awesome.

Yeah, I actually haven't talked about it in the podcast because I've just been kind of planning this and actually I just submitted a application with a Bryman like media like on play application, but I think I'm going to try an experiment at Bryman this year. I'm calling it the shadow shorts. It's kind of like um

remember story core you know NPR they would like uh yeah so basically just so it's kind of a sim somewhat similar idea. because this is my show is just it's it's basically like 45 to 75 minutes like long form interview. I mean it's a conversational kind of interview. Uh so my idea was to on the playa or do what I'm calling the shadow short challenge where I'm going to challenge just average participants you know it's like okay it's like you have five minutes to explain Bernie man's in influence and impact on you go

love it love it

like

that and that could be a cool thing to happen and I imagine you need all your equipment with you and stuff, but

not that much actually. Yeah.

Um, it could be a cool center camp thing.

I was pl because you know the name of the show is a shadow of the man, right? And

I was going to say it could also be a cool man-based thing.

Yeah. And I was thinking it's like I like hanging out in the shade, you know. So I was like, "Okay, I'll do it on the 12:00 side of the man from 2 to 6 every day."

Love it. Love it.

And then just like random people that come up I mean, my only caveat is that uh you kind of have to have some history of burning. Like, you can't be like, I just showed up five minutes ago. It's like, yeah, you need to have at least like a year or two.

Yeah. Well, then maybe it's like a minute or two for the people who are fresh because

Yeah.

You know, there's there's nothing like the excitement of your first year.

Yeah. It's like you've been here for 30 minutes. What's its impact on you so far? Like, h I mean, I guess that's another thing, you know. people just be like, "Oh, this is awesome. This is wonderful."

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, what is awesome about it?

I, you know, one of the things I did remember as I thought about my burner history is that

by the end of our first burn in 2011. When we left, I didn't know if I wanted to go back. I was like, "Okay, this was cool. This was, you know, this was really neat." Never never done or seen anything like this.

Um, but would I want come back again. And I and I really didn't know. It wasn't like a no, but I really didn't know. By the time we were halfway home though, we were already planning for 2012. So, it was just uh you know, I was just like go go go and didn't have a chance to let all of the experience sink in until I had a time to breathe and and really reflect and and um

well, a good almost like 12, 14, 16, we were two days drive back home. I mean, that's a That's an excellent time to reflect.

Yeah.

You know, and then you get the the whole, you know, the the next year at Burning Man dot dot dot kind of conversations,

right? Right. And it was always better next year. And and it is it's always different next year. That's for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, as Larry always said, you know, it's like it's an evolution, you know, each year, you know. I mean,

but even though it's just like there's a lot of the same core things are the same. That's why like people ask me, it's like, oh, you took 13 years and you came off. And she's like, what's different? I'm like, It's more of what's the same actually.

Yeah.

You know, it's still that the bones are still there, you know, even though it's like some and no matter what era you pick, you know, people like people in 1996 were like, "Oh, this isn't the same as it was in 1990, right?" Like people 90 95 or 96 something like that. That is around when we first heard about it. And it was

And you were living in the Bay Area then, right?

No, we were living in the Bay Area in probably 2000. It wasn't the 1990s that we were in the Bay Area. We were in the Bay Area in 2000. But, you know, one of the things you asked me, what was my life like before then? I wasn't involved in anything like Burning Man before then. I mean, I have a bunch of friends who are artists, but I wouldn't say I was part of the artist community. We did a lot of concerts, you know, but we never did raves,

you know, upstanding business consultant, mom, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, life was just life and we were just trying to

make a life.

So, going back to 2011, So your first year, you have a great time, you're coming back and you're just it's like, oh, you know, I don't know. But then the more you drive, you're like, hm. So what what kind of got you to come back? And what did you do after that? Like

it the a lot of the specialness for me of Burning Man is is it really is it really is the now for something different week, right? And every year it's now for something completely different. It's the ability to the freedom to just, you know, kind of dress up however you want to every day and kind of plan for that, right? You can be whoever you whoever you decide you are in that moment. It's um all the different music and the different people that you get to meet and the the the way the community just brings all the things, right? I mean, there is from the from the big art and so there's nothing like the art that you find out on the play and there's nothing like what you find in Black Rock City, right? So from bars to TED kind of talks to whatever you want to experience, there's somebody there who's offering it and that was just such an incredibly cool concept of community for me and um and and to be able to find some creative sides to me who's always been more in the logical domain than the creative domain. Uh it was like, whoa, this is this is just something such a great addition to my life. How could I even think

this is possible?

Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. So then so then you went back in 2012.

We went back in 2012 and we've been back every year that there was an official burn except 2014 because that happened like three weeks after our daughter passed away. So that's

I'm sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. We weren't going to go that year. Oh, did you have the same dozen people like come back with you or

Yeah, we've we but we've also evolved into how each of us want to burn. So, um I I love the idea of of having a camp and offering some kind of interactivity. The guys that we originally went with um who were led by uh Heyou and his buddy Andy um who's also a very dear friend of ours, they really were more about art. They didn't wannabe hosts. They wanted to

put some renegade art out on the playa and do interactive stuff. And they ultimately evolved into, you know, getting art placed and art grants and stuff like that. And and so we camped together for another couple of years, but then we kind of separated from that. It it so that there were no expectations on anybody for anything. That was kind of the best way to do it.

Yeah.

Um another friend of ours, another of our two best friends, uh they decided They didn't really want to be part of a theme camp. They love camping in the BBS and they do their own thing. They they bring up they they they put out a little table in front of their camp that's usually somewhere on eye, you know, back in the middle of the city on I they'll put out a table that is um fishing for compliments. So, they have a big jar that they put a whole bunch of compliments in and it's compliments and bad cologne. So, you can pick a compliment and you could take your pick of getting whiff of bad cologne if you want

and it's adorable. And then when they're going out on the fly, they bring a big penguin in a Polaroid and they take photos of people holding the penguin and gift them the little Yeah. So, so all of us have done our thing. Um, and we still burn together, but we've decided, you know, many of us decided camping together because we want to do our offerings in different ways was the best way.

I'm just imagining this like fishing for compliments thing like dressing up like Ron Burgundy. You know, you want what's it? The the panther gallbladder.

Well, for them it's just a big, you know, a big like maybe like a a big old plastic pretzel jar or something.

Yeah. Yeah. It also kind of reminds me of some friends had um h what was it called? It was like a a hippie fishing like bait and tackle shop.

Yeah.

Yeah. We have a we had a camp behind us one year um that that was one of their activity. So you could go sit on top of their little ledge and they give you fishing hook and and you know and throw a little bling out there and find people to go get it and play with them that way and that's kind of fun.

Yeah, that's awesome. So did you guys have like a theme camp like an organized theme camp or were you guys just like

So after that um uh my husband and I and our other two friends decided to organize our own little theme camp. So we were actually a fourperson theme camp. We got placed and everything. We had a little 50 by50 spot.

You don't have to have 300 people. we didn't need 300 people. Um and uh uh yeah, so it was a couple years later and we put together first it was cuz our our original camp that Rich had founded uh was called the Black Rock Ski Patrol, which was really kind of funny because none of us skied. And then um and then when we decided to go on our own, the first year was like an homage. We were the the ski patrol outpost. Uh so we became my husband and I came up with the name of Ignite. United States. Um, just great play on words, we thought. And so we were ignited sk United States, the Black Rock Ski Patrol Outpost. And then later on we dropped the ski patrol outpost. But uh, and we just did, you know, we had a birthday party because every year um, one of the people that we camp with, her birthday's on September 1st. In fact, our very first burn was her 60th birthday. Oh, wow.

And we dressed her up and paraded her around the Playa and she got lots of hugs from lots of people. Right. So, we always had a a birthday party for birthday girl. Um, we did uh we built a couple of shots skis and so we've always done some kind of version of fireball and shots and um and then we we we did just did some little stuff and you don't have to do a lot to have interactivity and have fun with people, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Um and so uh so then then we we did that for a few years and then ultimately we got invited uh to camp with um a camp that was called f****** Flamingos, which was the first 100 person camp that I camped with. Um the the leads for that, that was a camp that had evolved over several years. And um and we had been helping um this guy named Ian Liljabla. You may have, well, you may not have seen because you haven't been there in a long time. I don't think he was there that last year.

Uh but there's a big reggae art car,

a big reggae mutant vehicle looks like a great big lion's head with the with the colors of Jamaica along it. It's a double-decker and it's called Movement of Ja people is the name of the art car.

And uh he and I met each other um on E Playa after 2011 was both of our first burns and he said, "Hey, I live in Phoenix area. I I did my first burn. I want to make an art car. I want to make it reggae themed because I think that music belongs on the playa." And he was looking for for um advice

uh and and I'm like and so I messaged him like, "Hey, I'm not an artist. I'm not a builder, but I'm in Phoenix and I would love to help." So, we became friends and then 2017 he had camped with f****** flamingos for a few years and so we just became part of his crew that year and it was our first time with a big camp. Um after that, that was f****** flamingos last year and the leads passed the camp on to two people. It it kind of the tradition of at camp going back to late 90s was when the leads decided to retire, all the camp infrastructure would go to the next leads that they designated. Um, and those leads had the ability to turn it into whatever they wanted. Um, and and so they passed it along to our friends Lion and Sasha who converted the camp into Catworld. And so in 2018 and 2019, we were part of Catworld and I ended up being kind of the chief cat herder. So, I took care of all the applications and all the placement and and all the organizing for people to volunteer for their shifts to do things. And we had an incredible infrastructure and it was huge and we did it for a couple years and we were over 100 people and it was so much work.

Yeah.

Um

it's a lot of work.

We we we um in 2022, so the year right after COVID, we came back as a teeny tiny camp Um and and then the leads decided they were done leading camps and so they passed it along to me. Uh and so we rebirthed United States in 2023 and uh and now we're a camp that will never become more than 36 people. Um and

that's the way to do it. Yeah.

Yeah. And and we're pretty chill and it's largely daytime stuff, but a couple of parties at night because we do have a DJ that loves to play. Uh so

I got to tell you, like one of the most underrated things at Bernie man, which something which I I totally lived this past year when I went back was getting a good night's sleep and waking up the next morning. Like I had this one experience where I was like, I'm going to wake up early and I'm going to see the sunrise. And so I got out of my tent and I had a camp mate and he was like, are you are you pushing on through? And I was like, what what do you mean? He was like, are you gonna stay up all night? And I was like, I just got up. Look at me. I'm a spring chicken. And just a look in his face like Yeah, I sleep really well there. I It's It whole cacophony of sound. It's kind of like a lullabi for me.

Well, I kind of like my background. It's kind of like the ocean after a while. It's kind of like a like a white noise kind of gener like what when everything kind of like combines together. It's like

Yeah. My husband uses noise cancelling headphones and earplugs and he'll find a way to go to sleep. But I just it's really soothing for me for some reason.

But then the other thing you're talking about like the whole camp thing like I mean, I think I've only ever been in a camp of like maybe between eight and 25 or something. So, that's why I've been saying like, you know, I missed from two two last was 2011 when it went back to 2024. I missed this whole year of like era of uh you know, not only just like the year of scarcity, but um the era of like super large camps, you know, just hearing about these like 100, 200, 300 person camps, I'm just like wow. you know, like, but like I don't know. One of my things about brainy man is like there seems to be this tendency

across the board of just like

I call it uh bigger bigger bigger bigger fail.

Yeah. Well, I but I think that you know the thing with the large camps

there's there's still so many smaller camps. Like yes, there are a bunch of huge ones and if they love what they're doing, more power to them cuz some of those are really way cool.

Yeah, I think some of them are sustainable but it's just like the the sheer number of large ones is like I don't think that's really sustainable over the long term or like like your experience, you know, where it's just like oh yeah, they do it for a while and then people get burned out and then it's like who wants to take up this mantle doing this crazy thing with all these people and it's like uh

well and you know it's it's fine for all of them. Um but there are still so many amazing camps that are between five and 50 people that just do the coolest stuff.

I with Bernie B. It's like you don't need much, you know, like uh like you're talking about your friends with the um

the fishing for compliments thing. I mean

it I mean it could be a simple concept, you know. I mean it could be an outfit that or like how you decorate your bike or I mean I've seen pia art installations and scare quotes installations. It's like I mean you're just like my kid could have made that a paperier-mâché, you know? So it's like yeah but I mean it's it's making some sort of statement. One of the things that I did and and this was just like the coolest thing for me personally. Um because I told you I don't think of myself as an artist at all. I do great at organizing things. I do great at bringing people together. Um um and and um but I do find ways to get a bit creative like when we did Catworld and we had you know you've got a camp of 100 people and we have events and everybody needs to sign up for shifts and we got to do all the things. So, I made I used Canva and I made these great big posters that had like, you know, cat faces and snarky stuff and and they were really cool looking and um that year and I forget her name and I shouldn't, but the art curator for Burning Man project, I'm sure her name will come to me. I think she retired this past year. Anyway, she was going around the Playa in 2018 looking for theme camp art. She said, "We've got so much art. We do all the art on the ply and I'd love to see what's going on in theme camps. And she came by our camp and she looked at our posters and she said, "Can I have these? Can I take them back to Burning Man Project?" And so at the end of the event, she she came and took them and they and at least one of them I know was hanging somewhere in Burning Man Project headquarters. It was like, "Oh my god, I'm actually an artist."

So what were the posters? again like what would you describe it as?

It was so so one of them was like um so think about a list of all the different events throughout the week and all the different shifts like mooping and doing camp you know we it during that time we had different people get would get together. So the camp would have a meal every day but it was all teams of people from the camp putting the dinner together for everybody else and um uh and then bar shift and checking IDs and doing all the things. So, it's so it turned into this great big poster and I had photos of cats with trash bags and cats with microphones and and you know, just ways to kind of liven it up and be in our theme and it was very colorful and you know, but within our camp's theme colors and our logo and

and she just thought it was really cool and creative and I and I thought, "Wow, okay."

What was that? Ladyb maybe.

Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah,

it was Lady B.

Oh, right.

Wow.

Yeah.

So, that was really neat.

Do you still do Catw World now or?

No, we do United States now.

Oh, I'm not a cat person. It was fun being part of Catw World, but the two leads were cat people, so it was their thing. Um, my ply name though did evolve to Sassy Cat when we became part of when we when we formed Catworld, though. So,

my original Ply name um was bestowed on me in 2011 at our first burn by one of our campmates. It was our first like real night going out on the town, if you will,

and um and I walked out of our popup trailer that we had at the time with the outfit that I had on. Now, everybody knew me as Lisa and I tended to, you know, I've got this conservative um career and uh you know, we do all the things and but I walked out in this whole lacy thing with hats and, you know, thing and all that, you know, whatever. And one of my campmates looks up and says, "Who ho, Sassy Britches." And so that became my that became my ply name. And that was my ply name until Catworld. And it then had to evolve into Sassy Cat. So

is it still Sassy Cat?

It is still Sassy Cat. Yeah.

Yeah.

So what what years were Are you uh doing Catworld?

We did Catworld in 2018 and 2019.

Ah.

And we did Catworld mini in 2022 and then 2023 we became United States.

I like you said you had to put mini on it.

Yeah. Well, it was the the first burn after COVID. A lot of people weren't able to go. It the the leads were exhausted. There were some other issues that prevented them from really wanting to bring a big camp back. So, So, in the spirit of having the camp there, we did Catworld Mini.

And so, now you're doing United States and you said it's like a smaller camp. So, what do you guys do for that? United States like what's your

So, it's kind of like um it's not like United States where it's geographically, it's United States like think state of being, state of mind. It could be in the state that you happen to live in. I don't care. But, um so that's kind of the the the you know, the overall thing. And so we do um we do some daytime stuff and kind of the theme of our daytime stuff has tended to be uh beverages and bad advice. Uh so we do a couple of mornings we'll do mimosas with bad parental advice. And um and then a couple of afternoons we'll do for the people who wake up a lot later than that uh we'll do coffee, tea, and unethical life advice. Um Alongside of those activities, we have crafts that people can do. So, we supply little flags. So, you can paint a flag that a little part of it has our logo, but you can paint a flag that kind of depicts what state you're in. Um, we've got some other crafty things that are coming to our camp this year. One of the one of the artists in our camp is bringing a

So, if you come to our camp, which will be somewhere in nine o'clock area, okay,

you'll see two 10-foot tetrahedrin art pieces. Um,

wow.

One of them has like these big balls dangling from it and the other is um like plexiglass with with these amazing art inside the plexiglass and you can kind of sit inside of it. Uh, and in between the two is a shaded bench.

Um, and uh, and so the artists who created those came up with a craft project where you could take like think straws um uh and making like tetraheden shaped straw art. Okay.

And be able to put it together and turn it into kites or chandeliers or whatever you would want to want to turn it into. So,

um we've got another So, my theme for my c my my overall approach with the camp is if you've got some kind of interactivity that you want our camp to do, great. You get to lead it.

I'll announce it. We could do it. You get to lead it. We'll get enough people people in the camp to help you with the event. So, we've got a couple of people who who built puppets and they're going to be doing puppet shows and there's a chance they're going to bring puppet making materials. Uh we've got, like I said, we've got the DJs. So, we're having a party on Wednesday night. Um the first hundred people who come to that party will get u mashed potatoes made in snow cones. Uh so, we're calling it bangers and mash.

Oh, wow.

Uh we usually have

We do a lot with mashed potatoes, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. But we wanted make it easy that people didn't have to worry about having a plate or stuff. So, we're just going to scoop it onto a

Yeah. Easy is also another underrated thing at Burning Man. People are like, "How complicated can I make this?" You know? I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no, no."

Yeah. And we're not going to do more than 100 so that we don't have to get a permit for feeding people. So,

is that what it is? More than 100?

It's 150, but we want to be well under that. So,

yeah. Yeah. So, what do you use for the cone itself? Is just like paper or something or

No, an actual ice cream cone.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

H

Yeah. Yeah.

An ice cream cone without the ice cream.

But like a sugary ice cream cone.

A sugar cone.

A sugar cone.

Yeah. One of those. Yeah. You know, they kind of like was if it was going to be savory. I don't know what kind you like.

Yeah. And then on Friday, Friday afternoon, we have a happy hour. Ignite your state happy hour where it is um um fireball on ski shots. And that's I think that's everybody's favorite event because people really get into it.

And do you give bad advice as well?

Well, Um, I'm terrible with bad advice, but the deal is when you come for mimosas and bad advice, you give us the bad advice. So, it's like give us the worst parental advice you ever heard or make some up just because you want the drink, you know, either way, we're cool with it. And if you really like that, actually,

if you can't think of anything, we've got somebody to give you some bad advice. I don't like

Wow. So, your uh clientele for the bad advice, I mean, are they typically skew older? Like parents who were just like, I got some bad advice, let me tell you. Oh, no. Everybody comes and they're usually talking about really bad advice they got from their parents, right? And some of Okay, what's the worst parental advice? Don't go to Burning Man, right? Grow up and become a doctor. You know, be like me. I mean, people come up with the, you know,

good stuff. Funny stuff.

Okay, I have a a funny story. I'm not sure my my wife wants me to tell you the story, but uh here it goes. Anyway,

uh because we used to do a little Airbnb thing at our house, but then after CO, we we didn't do it anymore. So, people would just, you know, they go to Costco and they just like leave stuff And so in in the the then like my son was younger and he had some friends come by and then you know one of the neighbors just like um auntie auntie can I have some of these like like like frozen pops in the freezer and she's like yeah hey yeah eat and then the next day the kid came back and was like um can I can I get more of those those frozen pops in the freezer and she's like why he's like I really liked it. I really liked it you know like uh hold on. Then she went down and she was just like why is the flavored pinina cola. We were like alcoholic like ice pops. We're like who made who would make such a thing? Like we didn't even know such a thing even existed and they bought it and left it there and we're just like I was like don't worry. It's like honey you've just won the coolest mom of the school award for sure.

Okay.

For sure.

Yeah. I thought when he said like a mimosas and dad advice thought that would be part of it. Just like here kid.

Uh last year some people got really serious with it. Um and a couple of our campers are like whoa we just got somebody you know their trauma kind of came out. So this year we're figuring out ways to do our best to keep it really light.

You know we don't we don't have therapists in the camp. We don't want to we don't want to push somebody over the

Yeah.

So

that also kind of reminds me another idea I had one year. I was going to be kind of this like uh I don't know like a spengali or like um it's kind of makes kind of like a turban my head and it's just like oh I'm going to like I'm going to tell your future you know but it was always kind of like this weird kind of dark future you know just it's like in five years you're going to meet this guy and he's going to be wrong for you he's going to say he loves you but he really doesn't

Yeah we've had a bunch of those

where it's just like you know you're going to have some friends and you're going to get in the car and they're going to be like ah let's have a couple drinks and let's drive and it's like no didn't do that. And you're like,

"Yep,

I would." Yeah.

Yeah. So, so we have fun with it and um and everybody has fun fun with it because we're not forcing anybody to do something that they don't care about, that they don't want to do, and we've got enough people in the camp that we've got enough to go around and and uh and we also want to make sure that everybody in the camp has plenty of time to have a great burn on their own. Um

Yeah.

Yeah. So, the people come up and give you the bad advice. I was think you would be giving them the bad advice

and that's usually what they think. So when they find out, hey, oh, you know, we're like, okay, what's you got to give us the bad advice? Some of them are like,

wow, you got to have a kid as a bartender, then that would make it perfect.

But everybody was a kid. You don't have to have a kid. Everybody was a kid. Everybody and and even if

and everybody knows somebody, right? Everybody's had a friend who got really s***** advice from their parents. So

it's it's something that everybody can relate to. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I love that.

Yeah. Yeah. So come on by. We'll be somewhere in 9:00.

So you guys do every morning or

No, Monday it'll this year Monday and Wednesday morning our mimosas.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. I got to tell you. Uh well, it's just a straight orange juice mimosas or do you guys like

Yes. Well, no. We'll do mimosa with um with bubbly in it or if you don't want the bubbly, we'll just do orange juice. It's

because I got to tell you, you got to might be kind of hard to get, but uh you have not lived until you've had a guava juice mimosa.

Ooh.

Oh, I mean I I you I Well, I I can show you later, but um because especially here in Hawaii, there's like these different like juice companies and uh you can actually order on Amazon. It's like this powder and you can just kind of like mix it up. And so the past couple or like this this year, I brought some on the ply. I'd mix it up and and in the morning like, "Oh, who wants guava juice?" And and just a Hey, guava juice. And everyone's like, "Huh? What?" You know, like, and it's like, you know, I put a little like put some definitely put ice in the cup and and then you put some guava juice and then after the first sip, you just look at their eyes. They're just like,

"What? What is this magical elixir?" I'm like, "It's called like

that sounds amazing."

Oh, yeah. And with like mimosa with like some B. Oh, it's

cool. All right. I'm going to look it up.

Yeah.

And I like the idea of bringing powdered juice instead of the jugs that we normally I got to tell you, it's a lot easier. Yeah. I mean, it's And in terms of like like fresh juice versus powdered like when you're on the plastic that's good to me, you know, like whatever. But yeah, I mean any kind of powdered things, it's like yeah, it it's lightweight. It doesn't store. You just need to bring enough water

makes it and then, you know, you can um

I don't know Sure. And depending upon how many people you're serving, it's like you don't need like a full five gallon container, you know. It's like you can do like one of those like just one gallon like you just you know just you put some ice in it and you put the the however much powder in and then you like you mix it up and

it's like yeah one gallon is good to that's all the trick I've learned over the years like you pack a cup full of ice it's like you don't really need to pour that much like drink into someone's drink and everyone universally is like this is the best drink I've ever had cuz it's like yeah cuz it's cold you

right

you just need to get a lot of ice like especially out there.

Yeah. Wow. Okay. Um, so when did you So are you're a regional contact in I am Arizona. So when what did that all happen? How'd that happen?

I I um I never even knew there were there I had no idea there was such a thing as a region when we went to our first burn. We found out about it because that was um one the year or one of the two years that they had the the effiges, the core around the man from the different regions. And I found we found we hey a sarro. Oh my goodness. We found out there was a region called Arizona. Uh so we we started to meet people from Arizona and became a little bit involved and then really we started getting and so we went to a couple soroms um which is our regional burn.

What was the first year you did that?

Oh god, I don't remember because my my work had had me traveling so much. I think we bought tickets for every Sarro man since 2012. Um, but we probably didn't go to our first one till maybe 2015 or so because I would always end up gifting them at the last minute cuz I would have to go away for work. So, um, but we've been to several since since then. And we really started getting to know people in the region when we started camping with f****** flamingos at the Big Burn. It's kind of like that's when we started because it's largely Arizona people and um

so we just started getting more and more involved and knowing who people were. Maybe we went to a bunch I don't know maybe we went to holidays and you know there's a few kind of standard party things that we have in the region. We've got holidays at the end of the year. Um we used to have 100 days. I think I need to revive that.

What's that?

We've got newbie events. We've got town halls. So I started meeting people around that and I was having I was out having a drink or something with a couple of the other women who've been in this region for a long time and they're like, Lisa, you need to become an RC. Like, what is it and why? Um, so they said, you know, that's what Scatoto does. That's what, you know, CutiePie does. That's, you know, so, so they pointed me to the place in the Burning Man website to find out more about what RC was about. And I thought, okay, well, that's cool. And I didn't think anything of it. Um, until the a call came to the region that said, we're looking to add some RC is said, "Okay, so now let me go back to all this stuff and think about what appeals to me about it." And what appealed to me about it was was one connecting with a lot of people around a lot of other RC's from around the world cuz I love like my passion is the Big Burn and my other part of that is is um just this culture that that's been described as the 10 principles which in Arizona we've we've adopted principle zero is consent. Uh so I'll say 11 principles. Um but but this whole culture that is described and that I aspire to live that way and and I think that it's as much of that as we could bring to the default world the better. So if the RC's role is to help facilitate that culture in in the area of the default world where they live. I was all about that

um in in any kind of ways. And so I applied, I went through interviews and and there you go in 2020 um I became an RC.

Wow. Excellent.

Had no idea even with the interviews with the folks in Arizona, I had no idea that one of the things I was getting into was becoming a person on a board of directors for the region. But that's turned out that was part of the job. So that became very interesting. Um but but yeah, so I became an RC in 2020. Um and and uh you know that's the year that we two thing two big things happened in 2020 um for one for our region and one everywhere. One for our region was that's when our region purchased its own land.

So this great big investment

got our own land down in in uh Willox, Arizona. Um, everybody's super excited because now we're going to have Sarro Man, which is in the spring on our own land, but now we had COVID, and we had to cancel.

Um, and then we had to cancel the following year. And so, and and and so it was, you know, you've it was

a lot of drama, a lot of feelings, a lot of fear because now we had this huge investment. We had no idea how we were going to pay for it. We had to We had to refund a ton of tickets. I mean, we paid for the investment, but now there was kind of like with needing to refund the tickets that people needed to get refund.

I need donations.

There were there was a lot and we did we pitched for donations. We became a nonprofit. We pitched for don I mean so we

there's so many questions about so much stress involved in all of that. Um but we made our way through it um in the process. So one of the big things that I was involved in for our region was um converting what was an LLC into a nonprofit 501c3.

Um we did it about the most complicated way that a region could go about it. So we have three legal entities which we really don't need all three. So we're probably going to untangle some of that and and reimplify. Um but so it's kind of, you know, it's it's cool being a nonprofit. We learn a ton. Um we've learned a ton about being a region that owns your own land. Um

it's Yeah. No, because there's not many re I mean

there's not there's there's a small handful.

Yeah. I mean, that's always been kind of like the great like kind of holy grail golden dream for like us here in Hawaii cuz like I started the Hawaii regional in 2002 and then retired in 2012. And even to this day, you know, like the the hardest part of doing it is just finding a place I mean to do an event and things. Yeah. We've learned some things to watch out for.

Yeah.

Um like we've had real struggles like this is pro the sorrow man that we just had is pro is is the last one that we're going to have on that land. Um

because we we we bought the land in a in an area that's ultimately zoned for residential purposes. It's

it's 40 acre homestead plots.

Um and so we have two two 40 acre plots that are next to it. So, we have 80 acres, but there's still but we still have neighbors and we still have neighbors who can hear our sound.

Oh,

we have neighbors and the road to get in there is a is a dirt road like a packed dirt road, but when you've got a thousand, you know, when you've got all the traffic coming through, it kicks up all the dust. So, their homes get dusted.

They don't like the sound even when we're abiding by sound code cuz that's not why they moved to the sticks and they're very worried about fire even though we get the permits every year. So, it's become

it's become a really diff we we decided we don't want to be the kind of neighbors that our neighbors don't want to have.

Um we applied for a special kind of permit that we could do other smaller things on the land and we got turned down because all of the neighbors participated in that process and the and the elected commissioners who had to make a decision needed to listen to the voters,

the constituents. So the

voters. Yeah.

So, we're not quite sure what we're going to do with the land right now. We'll have our decompression there in October. Um we uh we're thinking about, you know, one idea might be, do we keep the land and turn it into our our own version of Fly Ranch, like make it like a big maker space and experimental in agriculture and sustainability and, you know, we got the land for really cheap. So,

yeah. things like no overnight.

Also, the really interesting thing, Andy,

uh,

really cool thing. So, out of like all this, oh my god, comes some amazing things. Um, after after these hearings were done and they made the news down there, after the hearings were done, um, the mayor of another city nearby

wrote to us and said, "What can we do to bring you guys to our city? Ooh,

the mayor of the town of Wilcox, which is where we're attached to. Um, we ultimately heard from from that mayor and his team, and they said, "We understand the difficulties that you've had being in the neighborhood where you are. Um, we love that you guys come here. We've actually run the numbers." They borrowed some software from another township.

We like your money.

They ran the numbers. And here's some interesting things. The degree to which because it's a very small town, the degree to which we impact their economics positively, they can't overlook um the when we bring our 1,200 person event, we increase the population ever so slightly and during that period of time, the crime rate goes down. So they've got a better crime rate due to us being there. Um things like that are just like, you know. So, they ran the numbers and they said, "We think that we could find land for you

to use around here that we could turn this into a win-win."

So, not land for us to buy, but land for us to use. So, they found some We had a team of people team of people go look right before Sarroman, and it looks really promising. We also had the mayor and the city manager, the mayor's father, the mayor wife, the city manager's spouse, and other people like their version of, you know, their department of public works, a whole team of them. Uh they're the ones who led our team through looking at this land that they had spot thought was going to be right for us, which it very well may be.

Wow.

Um we invited them to come to Sorroman.

Excellent idea.

So they came and they came about 5:00 on Friday afternoon. We had two art cars basically, you know, bringing them on a tour and they stopped at different camps and they participated and and um and uh our kitchen crew that's there mainly for the volunteers had some shakuderie boards prepared for them and and uh and I mean I it was just I'll give you like two snippets from this because it was I've never heard of a region having cities trying to get them in. I've only heard about all of the all of the angst that goes around

like what we experienced with the neighbors the um they're doing part of their tour and and one person in their entourage, I won't say exactly who was first thing they said was, you know, they're looking imagine looking around a regional, right? A small version of Burning Man and you've got the camps and you've got the big art and you've got all of this stuff going on and there's infrastructure there. They're like, who pays for all of this? Which which gave our team a great opportunity to talk about gifting and communal effort and and how it all actually comes to be and how everybody's participating in their own way and they were like, "Wow, this is amazing."

Yeah.

And so as they talk about gifting, the same person then starts thinking aloud, "What would my gift be? What would I be able to gift if I was here?" And so then then they're having this conversation about how much this person loves the game of golf and and ultimately said, "I know. I'll gift Arnold Palmers.

Okay.

Yeah. And then another person in the entourage gave like the lead who's been coordinating all of this with with the town. As they were leaving, he took a um a medallion off of a off of a chain that he had and he gave it to the lead organizer. He said, "I'd like you to have this." So, it's like

and then and then so the official visit was over. A bunch of them stuck around till like 2 o'clock in the morning just participating. and then a bunch of them came back on Saturday to participate more. So,

it was the coolest thing to happen. Um, we're still talking with that other city as well. I mean, we've got two mayors like who would love for us to be there and want to help us find the right spot.

Wow.

So that we can have a burn the way we love to where we can play loud music where we can burn the effigy and the temple and the other art that's meant to be burned. Where we can

such the opposite experience of we've had out here cuz like we go around, we talk to people, they're just like, "No, no." And then like most of like the large land like there's in Hawaii there's there's a few like owners of like large land. It's like it's basically it's like the federal government, the state government, the military, uh Castle and Cook, like Dole, you know, and they own like, you know, the thousands of acres or hundreds of thousands of acres, you know, and we're like, we just need some little little snippet over here and be perfect. And then like no you know, like it's like

we had we've had great experience with law enforcement as well in the area.

Um, you know, we've needed to call them in a couple of times and they've just been fantastic and and they're like, "Hey, you guys do this right. Whenever you need us, you just call."

Yeah. I love the whole It's just like, you know, it's like I'm open to be woo being wooed. I have two suitors. You know, it's like really because, you know, the town next door has told me this and it's like, "Oh, really?"

And we're not we're really not playing them against each other. We just want the right You know, it's kind of like like Gerlac, you know, where where Bernie man is, the Black Rock Desert. It's like this tiny little town and you know, it's starting in like 1990 and going through the years like more and more and more people showing up and you know, like the Wo County like sheriff's office. It's like, you know,

it's a huge bunny maker for them for this tiny little place in the middle of nowhere, you know? So, it's like even it's like, oh yeah, my my constituents are complaining about the noise or they're like, oh, they saw some like naked hippie or something, you know? It's like Yeah, like you know like the this the the grocery store down the street like over that that that that long weekend that they were here was like their sales went up like 5,000% or something, you know, and then and like in all the restaurants and the gas station and you know

Yeah. Yeah.

It's when the towns run the numbers and see the positive impact that we actually have.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

On the other on the other side of it though, we really also need to be good neighbors, right? So it's not just about the numbers. Because that was the other thing I was going to bring up and I'm sure you're in an ace at this too cuz like one of the things when we were running some events and people were kind of like skeptical, you know, we had all our bases covered and so going into it like I made an an entire binder. I was just like, "Okay, we have like our our permits, we have our insurance, like here's our fire plan, here's our medical plan." You It's just like everything was like boom boom boom boom boom boom. So like when like the the fire inspector came in, they were just like I'm here to inspect them. We're like come on in. look around, see whatever you want. And they're just like, "Well, I need to like here's our binder." And they're just like looking at the binder and they're looking around and

and where we were doing on the Big Island, the police had this their theory was that any gathering of a hundred people or more in their mind was technically a riot because I guess that's just how things kind of would go, you know. And we we had have like 600 people in the jungle and everybody from young to old like like all different people. They came in just be like all Oh, come in hot. And he's like, "Oh my god, oh my god." And then we're just like, "Look around, see whatever you want. Here's the binder." And they just were like, "How? I don't understand. Like, how is this how is this me?" And then what the funniest thing was like for years afterwards, they would just hear kept hearing these stories of people like having like these parties and the cops coming and busting them and then the cops just being like, "You guys, you're doing this all wrong. You need to do like these Burning Man people." Okay. It's like like Oh, that's like that was like, "Oh, My heart was so good. I was like, I feel so warm inside, you know.

Yep.

Yep.

So, yeah. So, that's been, you know, it's it's been like

freaking out and but it all turning, you know, kind of like the phoenix rising from rising from the ashes. Good good things come out of

Yeah, exactly. Well, it's kind of like one of my little slogans for my show because people say, "Shadow of the man, that's so dark." I'm like, "No, no, no." It's like I'm more interested in the phoenix than in dwelling in the flames. Yeah. You know, it's like it's much more that. Yeah.

Well, I got to come to Saguaro, man, one of these days.

We love it. And I was thinking I'd love to do a burn in the jungle.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, things have kind of

Yeah.

not as active here as they they used to be. Yeah.

We're trying to like revive things here, but I don't know because part of the whole I was talking about my shadow shorts thing. I was I was thinking it's like, oh yeah, I'll start to try it out in the in the play, but I was like, I'd love to go to some other regions and just be like, hey, you know, like let's see what you know, what's in Bernie man's impacting your life here.

Sure. Yeah,

sure. Um, you know the, um, the BRCVR, so Athena was here. We do, we do an event every year called Ignite. Um, and we partner with, um, artistic community in the Phoenix area. Um, we'll find a a space. We used to do it at uh, at this one gallery and this year we did it at a different place in a different town in the Phoenix area. And, and Ignite is about community outreach like default community outreach. What is this thing called burning man? And in our area, Sorro man and you know you've you've been curious about it. So we have people bring their art, people bring their art cars um and they get to experience kind of you know the whole feel and immersion of it. And so Athena brought

um the the virtual reality version of it and she was one of our artists that that showed that and it was really really pretty amazing. Um and and so I think that once people kind of get to experience a bit of it, a lot of the preconceptions might

Yeah.

go away.

So is Ignite like um like more urban setting?

Yeah, it's it's we do it in the city of Phoenix or this time it was in the in the city of Tempe. Um it's it's a place to go to. So the inside of the gallery is all set up with the walls will have art on it. Um where interactive activities can fit. They'll fit inside. Um, you know, we had one one group of so Athena was part of it. We had one group that um that had this whole like light show kind of thing that you could manipulate and project on a screen.

Wow.

We had um DJ in the back. We had some, you know, kind of I don't know talks. Uh we had a a a boutique, so a burner boutique in in the back room where in the back. And this particular location actually had changed rooms in there so people could try on stuff and and take home a new cool outfit. Uh we had some chill areas, we had a center camp area, we had an information area, and then outside we had a bunch of art cars. Um and uh and and they did their thing out there. So it was like an inside outside kind of thing. We had

this year we had um over 700 people got tickets. So that was that was pretty cool. Um and and yeah, we it's it's an it's an official event, so might be the first of these types of official events. We've been doing it since 2019 and um

uh and and it's a way to, you know, give all of our artists a chance to show their stuff to people that are not just at a burn, too. So,

yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. Uh okay, we're kind of going a little long here. I should get to my second question. Uh so, yeah. So, what what was your life like before Burning Man? Like, what what I mean, well, how old were you when you first went to Birdie Man? Cuz I mean, I remember like I was like 26 or something. I think the average age of people like when they first bring men is like in their 20s or something.

I know we were old when we got there. So I am um I'm 68 now and that was 11 years ago. So right that was No, that was that was 14 years ago. So

So I was in my early 50s. Like I said, my best friend her 60th birthday was our first burn.

Wow.

So yeah. Yep. But

did you grow up in Arizona or I grew up in Chicago. Both my husband and I grew up in Chicago. Um, north side of Chicago and, uh, we knew we wanted to get away and so in in the early8s, we moved here to Phoenix. Uh, but we moved away and came back twice. Um, we moved to the San Francisco area uh, 10 in the early 90s. Yeah, we were in San Francisco in the early 90s. We lived in uh, in Milbury and then we were there for a couple years. We came back here and then 10 years later we moved to the east coast. We were in the Boston area. Uh a job move for me. I got recruited. I So life before I, you know, very much the professional. It was all about the job and raising the kids and going camping and listening to M. I mean, we've always been music lovers, Grateful Deadheads. Um you know, we've always been about having fun. My husband and I met at a costume party.

Oh, there you go.

And uh uh yeah, always been into into the cool things, I guess, but uh but never that. And um and then after we were in the Bay in the Boston area for a couple years, we came back here. So, uh yeah, and we got back here in late 2006. Um which was perfect timing because I think I mentioned to you earlier our our oldest daughter ended up getting diagnosed with brain cancer in the first part of 2007.

Uhhuh.

Uh we happened to live right next literally walking distance from one of the top 10 brain centers in the world. So she was able to get all of her treatment here and uh and she kicked its ass in a in a cancer that is

Wow.

that that you're expected to live not more than a year and a half. She she made it happen for more than seven years.

Wow.

And yeah, during that time time she went to Burning Man. Uh right. So, you know, then we got to burn together for a couple of years before she passed away.

Yeah.

Um and uh and yeah, so life before burn was career, family, lots of music, all those kind of things, but nothing ever like Burning Man or Burning Man community. Um and and so it was it was a it it's I know the a later question is, you know, how has it changed your life?

Yeah.

Um

Yeah. We can get into that now actually.

Yeah. I mean there's I don't know what else to tell about life before Burning Man. You know 60 years is a lot of story which is irrelevant for the folks who are listening.

Well, one quick question. Um uh does your your daughter still go to Burning Man?

My daughter that went to Burning Man passed away in 2014.

You have another daughter?

My other daughter is has zero desire.

Oh yeah. Okay. Okay.

Although Although she and her husband got married in March of 2020, three, they had a teeny teeny tiny private ceremony and and um and and Danny and I said, "But we'd still love to throw you a party." And so we did throw them a party. They gave us permission. So their actual wedding party was in October of 2023, and they gave us permission to bring as much Burning Man spirit as we wanted to to the party. So they love the spirit. They have no desire to to to do the kind of camping that's involved.

Yeah. Is it like like every child parent relationship you know, like the Alex Keaton kind of effect, you know, just

I don't know because Jen, our oldest daughter, was was a pure burner. I mean, she just loved it. And I know other people, right, there are multigenerational burning families. So,

uh, I think it's just different personalities as well.

Well, anyway, let's get to our last question. The impact and influence of Bernie man on your life.

Um, so one is the hope that there is this even if it's a temporary city that has a culture that's been described by these 10 principles. It gives me kind of hope. Um and and so I feel like I have it it feels like me. So and I Burning Man has helped me feel so much more empowered to bring that into my life outside of Black Rock City. In addition to that, um Uh, so I think I I think I mentioned I you would classify me as a business consultant. Um, I I practice in a different kind of knowledge base than most business consultants do, but you could classify me that way. And um, and I also have brought a ton of the creative sense of Burning Man into my consulting practice. Like if you go to my website, you'll see a website that doesn't look at all a consultant's website. It's colorful. It's, you know, it's

and and I bring a lot of that into things like workshops and how to help my clients how to think better. It's not just about the logic. It's about all the freedom that you give yourself to think things through with all the senses that you have.

Uh so, so it's it it's changed um our friendship circle. Um like I would say I mean we still have the same four best friends. Uh but but Danny and my circle of friends has just grown so much and I would say it is mostly burners and uh and and you know and I love that. Um uh yeah, I guess those are the the big ways just freedom to be creative.

Um

uh hope with the principles and and as an RC like that's like I'm not the most RC's their job is largely running the an the the annual regional burn and I leave that to my to my co-archc who's that's her passion.

Mhm.

You'll find me at things like Ignite. You'll find me doing things like the newbie events, um the town halls. These are the things. Let's bring the community together. Let's bring this into our world. Like that's that's where I'm at. So

that's wonderful. That's funny. It's like the episode with uh Megs. I think I just dropped Uh, one one of the things we were talking about when we talking about like, oh, my friends are burners like,

you know, and you know, so we basically it's like your friends everywhere, you know, and so we were joking around was like you could just blindly throw a dart at the map and like I'll go there and then afterwards we just be like, hm,

let's see who I know.

Yeah.

You know, like I mean even if it's just like well I've never really talked to this person before, but you know they're in regional contact in

Yeah.

New Hampshire or Latvia or wherever. Exactly. Exactly.

They'll be like, "Oh, hey, come on in." And

it's quite a network that we have. Um, one of the things I did last year was I participated in the second phase of the 25 to Thrive initiative.

Uhhuh.

Um, and uh, and I think that's what that whole initiative is trying to tap into. I mean, this network that we have is just

it's so cool and it's such it can be such a compelling and wonderful community. And the more we're able to put people together like that Okay, I'm going here.

Yeah.

How can I plug into the burners there? Right. I know that I can get good advice on where to go, where not to go. I can have somebody to visit with, right? Somebody will have my back. And

yeah.

Yeah. Because when I was active and I was when I was still I'm now, you know, retired. I don't know if you see my shirt. And last year, I did the uh first um we did the first uh uh alumni reunion

right

on the last year. I made these t-shirts and they came out. This is like, "Well, we're all alumni. Why not have an alumni reunion?" You know, but uh one of the things I was always interested

So, for your listeners, if this makes the cut just I'll describe. He just stood up and showed me his graduated Burning Man.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. That's right. It's audio. Yeah, I'll have to put a picture of that in the show notes. But it's funny because it's like the first episode like, "Oh, yeah." It's just, you know, it's a man logo with a little cap and not gown, but just a diploma.

Yeah.

But um No, but the thing I I've always been interested in like uh it was like the uh the summits and then the global leadership conference and then I started this thing on the ply called the regional information center became the regional network center which became everywhere which now doesn't really exist anymore but it like you burners without borders you know like they have a camp you know uh

I mean I mean I know that there was always been like the the the yearly kind of gathering on the playa for regional contacts but

it's you know an hour or who and in the years past it was always like this boozy kind of thing and like and so I was like how about we have like a you know a a clubhouse a place where it's like not only like the regionals can can get together and and talk to each other but also you know just random like participants and burners can kind of come up and like learn about like the different regionals and it was always a lot of fun you know and and it's just like over the the the the course of the week and so we would set up these shifts these like I think they're 2 hour shifts I don't think there were four hours. That's probably too long. But uh and then we be like, "Oh, yeah." We'd have like two re two different RC's, you know, for each two like hour shift. And then everyone just kind of sign up and then like I don't know. It's funny. Was it Anthony in New Orleans? Like Andy's always giving us homework to do.

Like I had everybody like make a poster and I was just like I either I'm going to make these crappy posters for your regional based on like the information that you put up on the you know the map on the website. Yeah, which is notoriously kind of out of date, you know. It's just this like or you could make your own, you know, and so like in the beginning like

a couple of people did it, but as the years went by, like more and more people were just like, "Oh, yeah." And they got like really creative and it was a fun way of just

just having just the time to just sit down like on the plate in the shade and just and then different people would kind of come by and we' be other RC's or just like other burners and and and like you're saying like it just there's so many burners are just like, "Oh, I I had no idea man was like in my hometown or my region like Oh, yeah. It's like right over here, you know? Yeah.

Yep. Yep. I love that idea.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

I'd volunteer for a two-hour shift for something like that.

Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. It's funny cuz like uh Steven Rasput like I remember I always kind of drive him crazy like, "Hey Stephen, I got this crazy idea." And he's like, "Oh god, not again. Another idea." You know, but Steven was instrumental in like actually getting that going in the first place. And was it 2003, 2004 was the first year of it. And like DPW made this just ramshackle little like shack, you know, and I remember like I did I was pretty basically the only real volunteer. I had a couple of people come by and there'd be like a big windstorm coming by and I'd like race down there with my staple gun and I'm like stapling these like these trees back up to these like potato chipping like plywood. But uh I don't know. I'm sure I'll have to bug Stephen just like, "Hey, Stephen, let's do that again." And he'll be like, "Not again."

Well, you know how we do that kind of stuff in our region. You got a great idea, go for it. It's yours.

Yeah. Well, going back to the whole like core thing, it's like basically how core came about was I think it was 2010. Like I didn't I I didn't go that year and I was like drinking and I was just like I got this funny idea. It's like what if we like brought like you know a dozen effiges like from the various regional burns And we set them up like around the man and like original concept was like yeah and during burn night and we we it'll be a simultaneous burn like we'll burn all these effiges and we'll fireworks that'll shoot like into the man and that'll light up the man you know I think like you know um Crimson and Dave X just had like a spontaneous like heart attack like oh no like insane you know but then I was just like a one paragraph like little thing. I just I posted in the regionals list. I was like, "Hey, what about this crazy idea?" And within a week, like there were 20 regionals who were just like, "Let's do this."

Yeah.

And Burning Man, the project was just like, "Yeah, we're not really interested." Yeah. It was like, "Uh, they kept trying to throw cold water on us." And they're like, "I don't know. We don't think that we can organize this." And I was like, "Don't worry, I'll organize it." And then like after like a couple of months, I realized like I personally can't do this from Hawaii, you know? And so I was like, "Uh, I need to pass this So I passed it off and like um my friend Curtis and and Andy Grace like they they took it on and yeah and then that it it grew and became what it was and it was always it was kind of like the idea with the the regional information center like a group project for the regionals to come together and do something. There's multiple goals, you know, it's like

sure

like each region can kind of like organize to do something apply art project like the regionals together will all do this like project. It'll also attract like other burners you know, from like their region in like in

but uh I guess it happened again the next year, but then it was like I think it was another example of the bigger bigger bigger bigger bust kind of thing where it's just like it grew out of control and then there were just like no more.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We did we we didn't do anything like that. But um to your point about using something like a project like that to bring

locals together um not Funny, not not last year but the year before uh the temple was the temple with all the that was made like flowers. Um

yeah

and they had put a call out say hey you know we can use from all over flowers right so make flowers and so

that's a great idea.

Yeah so I took that on in our region I said I put out a notice and I said anybody interested in doing this like as a region contributing to this pillar of flowers. And so we ended up with I think we got a bunch of donations and we got a bunch of people there must have been maybe 40 people that got together and we had a workday.

Uh and we had a few people, you know, leading up to that that got all the kit of materials that we needed that put together the design that used the CNC machines to cut them out. And we had an assembly day with I think it must have been 30 40 people from the region

that as led them all and then we packed them very carefully and sent them off to Oakland and they were all a part of the temple that year.

Wow.

And it was such a great feeling like everybody who was involved. It was such a wonderful feeling.

I just I don't know just made me think just I don't know I'm sure Stephen's going to be like not another idea Andy great I mean not for this year but like you know maybe for a future year. Uh you know how they always have like the temple competitions but it's like how about this idea for a temple? It's like something exactly like that. where it's like this will be like the communal temple or you know like various players from around the world whether it's regions and artists it's you know like maybe have like a the the original thing would just be like the kind of skeleton of it but it would be fleshed in by various other groups you know it's kind of like

be really interesting it would take a lot of coordination and I can hear the yes buts already but

it's an interesting concept

yeah it would take a lot of coordination, but uh so we need someone like you, you know, with some professional coordination.

It's not something I'm volunteering for.

Maybe someone out there listening, they can put together

smaller scale part of it, right? If the design is there and we know what corner we're going to do, I can get a bunch of burners in Arizona to participate.

Yeah. I don't know. No, that's

like a ambitious person out there is just like, I want to submit a design for the temple for 2026 and it's going to be the communal temple. All right. Well, I think We've been going little

Yeah, we've been going for a while.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. This has been an an awesome interview. Oh, so um if there's any ways people you want people to reach you, do you have like a uh some

Yeah. Arizona arizona burningman.org is the way you get to me through email.

Okay. Um if you want to get to our region's website, uh go to azburners.org.

Okay. Um our our sarro man is um is always the fourth weekend of April.

Oh fourth weekend of April. Okay.

Ignite is sometime in March and um our decompression is sometime in October. Um but yeah, if there's any Arizonans that are listening to this that aren't already plugged in with our region, I would love to hear from you.

So arizona burning org.

Arizona pretty. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful interview.

Yeah. Oh, wait. There's one more thing. If you publish this

Uhhuh.

Um before mid June

Well, I think

the movie event is June 14th. I think that's

Oh, I think this is going to be the July 1st.

Okay, cool. No worries. All right.

All right.

No need to plug that then.

Well, anyway, just for people to know, newbie event June 14th.

Yeah. hearing this about two weeks ago.

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