EP 24 Katy Tahja

Episode 24 with Katy Tahja is out now! She is a long-time burner and organizer for Mobility Camp, a service-oriented community in Black Rock City. The discussion centers on radical inclusion, highlighting how the camp provides essential infrastructure—such as wheelchairs, repair services, and accessible art tours—to ensure that individuals with disabilities or injuries can fully participate in the event. Katie emphasizes the intergenerational and communal spirit of the playa, sharing anecdotes about "grandma" figures offering comfort and the specialized support available for blind and deaf participants. She dismantles the myth that the festival is only for the young and able-bodied, illustrating how adaptive technology and human kindness allow anyone to experience the "magic" of the desert.

https://mobilitycamp.org/

https://theava.com/ (Anderson Valley Advertiser)

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. Goodness, it's that Andy. Today our guest is Katie Taya. That's how you pronounce it, right? Haya Taya.

Yes.

Well, and welcome to the show. So, what was uh your first year and what got you to go to party?

2012. And it was almost a family tradition in that my sister had gone for a decade, my daughter had gone, they both encouraged me to go,

but I am on crutches and I had certain limits and I w if I wanted to go I wanted to be in the center of everything and that's how I found mobility camp but also I'm an eternally curious person and I had thought that burning man was something maybe that I'd do once in my life

was in 2012 and I haven't since except for the pandemic and have developed a second family at Burning Man Oh, excellent. Wow. So, you said your sister and daughter, like, because this is in 2012, they had been going for 10 years at that point.

My my daughter went a couple of times. My sister had been go going at least 10 years before that, I think. Um, uh, part of the Renaissance Fair, Oregon Country Fair, um, crew of people that love festivals.

And I learned to love it. too.

Do the Do the two of them still are they still going?

Nope. Nope. The uh my daughter went with me one year and then she started having children which eliminated going to Burning Man.

Ah,

but um I took I took over the family responsibility of being the face at Burning Man. Took my husband once. He did not en he did not enjoy it. There were things he would rather be doing. So I have gone with a succession of younger people over the years.

And now

and now my son comes with me.

Oh, all right. How long has he been going?

Uh, this will be his third year. He's 47 years old, so he started late, though. I was in my 60s when I started. So, I was a late starter, too, for going to Burning Man.

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing about Burning Man. Like, there's always been like every type of person of every size and age and color, you know, I mean, it's it's

not a party exclusively for young people, you know.

Yeah. And I found that a lot of times and and more than once in my experience over the years, um sometimes it gives people comfort to have a grandma to talk to. Maybe you don't have a grandma in your life anymore. Maybe you're having a miserable day and you just need a hug. Maybe uh a cup of of iced tea on a hot day. being offered to you is something that hasn't happened for years, but some people like to have a grandma around.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, when you first went, were you uh part was there a mobility camp back in 2012?

There was. There has been um there has always been an awareness on the playa that there are people who are not going to be able to pedal three miles across the Playa on their bicycle under their own steam. Um that they're going to need a hand to get out and go experience things. So, starting way before ice first came in 2012, there were hot wheel a camp called Hot Wheels. Um there were um there were camps previous to that, but we developed the sideline along with having motorized vehicles that could take people out to see the art of passing out things like wheelchairs and crutches and walkers. Because while the Ramparts Medical Center will fix you up if you tripped over a tent steak in the dark and broke your ankle, they don't have crutches. They don't have wheelchairs. They don't have things to pass out to people. So, we took over the job of having portable medical equipment that we could pass out to people. Then also, because we were in the center of everything, when mobility devices need a charging, if you have an electric wheelchair, or something like that, you're gonna have to figure out how to charge it. And we provide charging for medical equipment for people that are on the fly.

Oh, that's incredible. So, how big is Mobility Camp now? I mean,

um we we vary between 40 to 60 people. Um we have we have uh a minimal amount of we have a straight a shade structure that the Burning Man organization puts up for us. Um We have h a community kitchen. Um we have a handicap porta body in the back which we really appreciate. Um and we have had everything from threeyear-olds to late 80s I think in our camp. Um we have had people with every conceivable kind of disability and we've had regular old able-bodied people that just want to lend a hand.

Wow. That's incredible. So are you like in involved in like organizing the camp or like a volunt volunteering like what was your

I I think like any organized camp at Burning Man we have what we consider core jobs and my job is to keep a desk staff at the front of camp. So if you come out of ramp parts because you've just tripped over that tent stake and broken your ankle, you're going to find somebody with a smiling face that says, "Hi, what can we do for you?" Um May we loan you a piece of mobility equipment? Would you like to go out on a curated art tour of the Playa? Because we have a trailer with bench seats shaded with wheelchair tied downs down the middle of it. And three times a day we take people out onto the ply to go see the art. And it's not a curated tour, though the artery does come by and provide curated tours in handicapped accessible vehicles. Our tour is more like Somebody told me about a bright shiny thing over on the far side of the plaza by the trash fence and it says love in letters 20 feet tall. Can you take me to go see that? I want my picture next to it. And so we'll go, great, let's go find the shiny thing with letters 20t tall over by the trash fence and we'll take your picture next to it. And then somebody will say, oh, I want to go see XYZ. And so we'll take off and go see XYZ. Our our tours are very um flexible where the artery, bless their heart, when they come by for their curated art tours, they have a designated number of places they go, the artists come out and explain their construction or their conception of what they're doing. Um, they're very timeoriented and those are a different experience than our sort of foot loose and pan tours that we offer.

The other thing that we've been doing that's really interesting is we've been working with blind burners and the with the our our most fascinating thing with blind burners last year was that given the ability to make something out of nothing nowadays somebody created a three-dimensional model of the temple in I don't know whether it was balsa wood to me it felt like balsa wood it was probably some kind of plastic but with your hands you could feel the entire design of the temple. The thing was probably about 2 feet by two feet

and then a section lifted off the side so you could put your hand inside and feel what the inside dimensions of the temple would have looked like.

That's incredible. That's a great idea.

It was it was you know the things that you can make nowadays that you can share with people. We've had we've had blind people working behind the counter at our at our contact desk where we talk to people. because it's Burning Man and one of the most frequently asked questions in center camp is where is the nearest portaotti and so the blind people learned the locations of all the portaotties and we said go talk to the gentleman at the edge of the table and he'll tell you exactly where to go.

But we we've there are several camps of deaf people at Burning Man. Um the blind burners are getting more organized and we have had people connected with us the make Wish Foundation does a trip to Burning Man for somebody coming up to the end of their life who had a wish that they could always go to Burning Man. So, we've had contact with those people. Um, a variety of different people. Not every handicapped person on the ply stays at at mobility camp. They're scattered all over the place, but they hear about us and they come by to say hi.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, are there dedicated camps for for blind people? You said there's one for like deaf people, right?

Yeah. Um, if I'm I would guess if you Google if you Googled blind burners you would find connections because the blind burners we're working with are from Britain. So figure we but we are also an international camp. We have Aussies, we have Germans, we have British people. Um, we've had people from all over the place and we've had just an amazing collection of people over the years. Some of them are still with us, some of them are no longer with us. But everybody has a way to make a contribution. One of the things we do um is because we're an interactive camp, we have a obstacle course. And our obstacle course you do either on crutches or in a wheelchair. And it is our way of showing people some of the things some of the problems you can face at Burning Man in a wheelchair or in a on a pair of crutch. But if you complete our obstacle course, you get a round of applause and a stamp on your hand that says you're an honorary gimp.

Oh, so this is for like able-bodied people then?

Yes.

Oh, that's a great idea.

People can get an idea of what it's trying what it's like to push a manual wheelchair through a dust pit.

Some of the things we we have frequently offered workshops on how to make your camp more mobility accessible because had a lovely experience one time of a camp with a maze. There was a maze into the entrance of their camp and it was a very cleverly constructed maze. And so they invited one of our camp members in a wheelchair to go through the maze. And lo and behold, when they got to the first turn, the people that built the maze said, "Oh," they said, "You can't turn a wheelchair around that corner. And we said, "Yes, that's true." And they go, "We need to redesign this." We go and and their plan was for next year when they when they did their mockup and their work at their home base, they were going to make sure a wheelchair could make the turns in their maze to go through their little maze pattern. Another one that we dearly loved is a camp from New Hampshire. that was remodeling a school bus to be a art car on the plyad. The school bus happens to be named Fluffy and it looks like a giant cloud.

They're from Vermont, right?

Yeah. Vermont. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And um they came to us at the planning stage and they said, "It's going to have a wheelchair lift in it. Um here's what we want to do. Um here's what the dimensions look like." And we were talking to man that was sitting down and he said the designer, one of the designers, Wayne, and he said, "Well, the sides are going to be 40 in high." And we said, "Are you sitting down in a chair right now?" And he said, "Yeah." And I said, "How high do you think your eyes are off the ground?" And he said, "Oh my." He said, "If I was sitting in a wheelchair, I couldn't see anything." And I said, "You're absolutely correct.

They not only remodeled it so the sides are like 34 in high. They put braille writing all along the edge so those blind burners that I was talking about could learn more about the vehicle that they were riding on by write rubbing their fingers over the braille explanations along the

incredible that just that made me think of an idea like we were talking about um someone made like a mockup of the temple so like blind people can you know can touch it and feel it. you know, see like wouldn't that be amazing to have like uh like a tactile Burning Man experience like because I remember I was talking to some friends. I don't know they were trying to think of like you know I mean they're like oh some business or something and so they came up with the idea that my other friend came with a name of like I'm going to make diaramas of like people's camps and was like oh you mean like a porama but like you know I mean that would be incredible like if he being like oh here's the man and this here's man base and you know like uh and you had you can have like different camps and that or even just like a map of the city you know and just be like here are the streets and here like you said like here are the portaotties you know you can kind of just like rub your hands

Andrew it's been done for

for braille it's been done many years we have had braille maps of the entire the entire city so you could see all the street layouts the trash fence was on it the man the temple was on it we don't get it every year because they're expensive to produce and the camp wants to have it at their camp. But the the creative things that people have done to make the playa more interesting uh the the one the one that we we attempted one year that we didn't get but we hope to do it sometime is Thunderdome is to get some of our people in Thunderdome wanted to go to Thunderdome right. you know, but

well, how would that work?

Well, you have a person sitting in a wheelchair and you have the people at Thunderdome going, "Um, I don't know if we can swing this one off." But, but it makes people aware. I mean, our almost our major goal with Mobility Camp is to say to people so many times it's been so sad to us that people have come up and go, "I didn't know you folks existed. I didn't know there was a camp like this. I had this friend of mine. I had my mother. I had, you know, a buddy who always wanted to come to Burning Man, but the distances and being far away from everything and not knowing, you know, the person has to use a CPAP machine at night and needs a place to plug it in. These people never came. And we say, we've dealt with quadriplegics on ventilators on on oxygen systems in our camp gleefully, right? And they were a wonderful contribution to camp. So, we've had people we've had, you know, college professors that teach about disability. Um, all kinds of people who have been members of our camp for years along with people who came by, you know, were born with disability or got crunched in a car accident or something like that and still want to participate at Burning Man. And we can show you how. And we can take you out to those things you never thought you'd get to go out and see, like the 20 foot letters that say love over by the trash fence or whatever. Um, you know, we go out and we find those things. Um, we're always happy when videographers and journalists find us um because that is a way um to spread the word about Burning Man. I got Burning Man into Nevada Magazine one time and we've um been in disability magazines and things like that making people aware again that we exist and we're we've now almost started what the what the org is calling a hub because right next to us is an amazing woman named Goldie and the Chariot Project. And she was associated with our camp like maybe 10 years ago and figured out that if you took two bicycle wheels and you put a seat in between it and two posts that came up and hooked on the back of a regular bicycle that the regular person could ple pedal their bicycle and you would tag along in your chariot that was added on to the end. Stay onto the end.

You could take your best friend anywhere in the playa you wanted to go. So that camp is right next to us with 20 chariots that they let go out during the during the days. Our camp is there for mobility issues. Blind burners is behind us. So we're forming our own little nucleus of service camps that can help you if you need extra help or if you damaged yourself while you were on the plya.

Wow. And so are you guys where are you guys centrally located like center camp or something?

We we're always in center camp. Okay. We're always on the you know this year we were next to Arctica.

Um so it's you know we move we we've been next to Lost and Found a lot of times but we're we're in that that um center camp plaza area. Um and it makes if if somebody has damaged themselves and they need to come find us, it makes it easier to find us if we're in center camp and we're providing the service.

Well, how do they get there? You know, like if they're coming from Rampart and it's like my leg is broken.

Ramparts. Ramparts. We've, you know, we've had people break their leg, be medevaced to Ukaya, excuse me, medevac to to Reno and they're back on the ply the next day. They figure out how to get back there because they're not about to lose their Burning Man experience because they broke their leg. And because the Black Rock Rangers are constantly circulating, taking care of people with problems. Say you're at at Ramparts, the medical center, they will pick you up and they will deliver you to mobility camp where we can see what we have available that we can loan out to you. And uh uh then you're on your way with your buddy pushing you and figuring out maybe you'll stop and make arrangements to get a chariot at the camp next to us. And then somebody can go to camp, bring their bicycle back, stick the chariot on, put you in the chariot, and take you off. I mean, people are not going to lose their Burning Man experience if they're out. A lot of them will not give up and go home. They will stay. You know,

they're going to be there till the man burns. There's no question. Or they have a tribute that they want to take to the temple and they're not going to pass up the opportunity to do that.

Wow. And then they return the stuff afterwards like

um we ask we returns on the wheelchairs, the crutches and walkers, not so much. Knee scooters we take, but everybody that's in our camp and people that have been helped by our camp, if you see, you know, a free box by the side of the road with a pair of crutches sticking out of it, you go over, grab them, and put them in your Burning Man pile. And when you get to the burn, you deliver them to mobility camp. And you go,

Oh, you take donations then. Really?

Oh, you betcha. Um, and we have we have a Facebook page for the camp. And of course, we encourage donations because with donations, we can there there is an ongoing fascination and love with knee scooters. The scooters you use um if you can't use one leg, you fold your leg up and put it on this little scooter and and push yourself around. We always need more knee scooters and and we have we have a lot of the money that and donations we get are not so much for material as to make people aware that the camp exists.

Yeah. No, because that brings me to another question is uh like we were discussing like there for for many people I guess you know there's there's well all sorts of people there's all sorts of different like barriers to entry you know like whether it's distance or or time or or money or or ability right age

or or age. Yeah. Um I mean there's all sorts of but like Yeah. So how Do you like in in the default world in the other you know 51 weeks of the year as we say uh yeah like how do you you guys spread the word like about your camper that you know that's like hey you know it's like you you too can go to Burning Man.

We uh we maintain our Facebook page we um on Facebook go a lot of first-time burners will go this is the first time I've ever tried this. I'm recovering from cancer um you know can anybody give me and an idea or a direction to go, we go, "Yeah, check the folks at Burning Man at Mobility Camp and see what they've got to offer." Um, I've done back when we used to do it in person, I've done theme camp symposiums that Burning Man offers in San Francisco, where I have my five minutes to stand up and the whole concept of radical inclusion, which is one of the 10 principles of Burning Man. We're the radical inclusion folks saying if you're going to go, that's why we love Fluffy, the big us from Vermont because Fluffy took the time, the people that put it together took the time ahead of time to think, what do we need to do to make it accessible? So, we're constantly putting ourselves out there going, you know, you may have heard about the sweet young things at Burning Man and you may have heard about the technub music. Well, let us tell you about the disabled burners at Burning Man and what you can do to help us be there every year and provide the kind of services that we've been providing for the last 25 5 years. We we have to tell people that we have a couple of limitations. We don't give you motorized equipment. People have wanted come and and wanted to know if they could get, you know, the same sort of thing you ride around in Safeway in. No, we don't do that. But we if you bring one, we can tell you what you can do to it to keep the dust and the ply dust out of the engine on the thing. Um we we're not a babysitting service. Um we cannot help do with your extremely disabled son who really likes to look at bright colors, but you're welcome to buy a ticket and bring an attendant for your son and then you can be, you know, part of our camp. Um there there are people who have expected us to be a babysitting service and we don't it we don't do that. Um but we do provide all kinds of support in advance so you know the kinds of things you need to have with you. I mean, I joke my my classic, you know, people go, "Well, well, do you stay in a tent? Do you take an RV? What do you do?" I use a 9- FFT U-Haul cargo van, and I refer to it as the poor woman's RV,

right? I put a 4-in thick foam mattress in the bottom of it. I put sheets and blankets so I can sleep in a respectable manner. I have a little personal privacy tent with my own tiny little porto right next to me. Um, I line the inside of the van with colorful tapestries. I am up off the ground. I have a little bit of protection from the noise though the noise there's not much noise in the center of camp and it is the perfect solution. It's in excellent mechanical condition so I know I can drive it from the California coast to Reno and back again with no problems.

That's a great idea. Yeah,

it is a it is a simple idea. If you can rent a U-Haul van for week or so and just, you know, it's easy to drive. It's airond conditioned, you know, and it and it's a solution. Other people find other kinds of solution. We've got every kind of habitation um in our camp that people drive in or come in on the Burner Express, you know, with their tent and their sleeping bag. Um we've we've got a shade structure to provide the tent people with shade. Um but we're we're a camp that's had with got rangers in camp. Part of our camp members are are also rangers. So, we've been, you know, we've worked it out over decades of experience on what to do so we can have a good time while we're there as the campers in camp, but we're providing a service to the larger burner community and making people aware. Don't think you can't come to Burning Man because you can. Contact us. We'll tell you how. When when we tell you how, it may sound like way more than you want to deal. You know, but we had so many delightful experiences. The year we had the horrendous rains, we had one man in a motorized wheelchair and it just so happened that there was a declivity in front of his tent and he couldn't bring his wheelchair out of the tent because there was a standing puddle in front of his tent. But at the same time, um, Root Pile, which is the bluegrass camp, couldn't offer concerts because people couldn't get there slogging. through the mud. So they sent Trudadors out to play music for the camp. And when all the camps and when they heard we had somebody stuck in his tent, we had a 20inut bluegrass performance right in front of this guy's tent so he could enjoy it too. And all the rest of us got to listen to wonderful music for 20 minutes and then Root Pile wandered off to the next camp that needed some entertainment. But that kind of stuff happens all the time.

Yeah. the year that we were next to uh Love and Oven, um you could smell the aroma of bread baking every day and then you know like a half an hour later here comes the folks from Love & Oven coming down to our camp with a couple of loaves of fresh bread for it

like a bakery kind of camp.

Yes, there's a fullscale bakery and almost one of the one of the funny numbers funny stories of Burning Man is they serve iced tea along with the bread that they serve. So I have a huge mint patch at my house and I pull up a whole bunch of lemon ball mint and take it to Burning Man with me every year. Wrap the roots in in wet rags and all and put a bag around it and take it to Burning Man. So, we're in a golf cart. One of the members of camp is taking me to Love an Oven to deliver and I'm holding like brown big brown grocery bags with green plant material all out of the top of it. And we're chugging along and we go past a deputy sheriff who does the quickest turn. around in your pipe because he thought somebody was brazenly carrying weed through the middle

and and we smile sweetly at them and of course you're not going to you're not going to frown at a little old lady and I smile sweetly at him and I go we're taking fresh mint to love an oven for their iced tea and they go oh that's awesome wow imagine like if you have a bakery camp it's like your your neighbors you you you you have to make them happy because I mean they're going to be smelling that, you know, every day.

About two camps away, we had beignets from New Orleans, too.

Wow.

It's a good place. It's a good place to be. Um, Center Camp is a good place to be because there's there's I Well, I very much miss the coffee at center camp because probably the most touching experience I ever had in my 12 years of going to Burning Man was over a cup of coffee. camp, but the um there it was much more active last year. There there have been highs and lows, but it was much more active last year. I just wish if they if they couldn't sell coffee, maybe they could just give coffee away because having a cup of coffee at Burning Man at the center camp was always a delight.

Yeah, it's a very communal kind of thing. I mean, that's and that's part of like, you know, for me it's like a central kind of thing for me is is a kind of community. connection, you know, it's a

well, one thing one thing I've loved from the very start is I am a journalist by trade along with also being a librarian. And um I discovered that if I wrote a story that was published in the newspaper about Burning Man, my Burning Man ticket was a tax writeoff as an expense of doing business because I couldn't write about Burning Man if I wasn't there. My tax accountant thinks this is the silliest thing in the world. She absolutely loves it. And for 12 years, my Burning Man ticket has been a writeoff. But over the years, I thought this would interest you. I Every year I come up with an interesting question of how to share the Burning Man experience with other people. So the first story I ever wrote was an Elder on the Playa.

Oh yeah, that's one

because that Yeah, that

I love that.

Thank you. Um I wrote about that. I wrote about how you pull off coffee. for 70,000 people. I mean, I'm over there interviewing the head of S center camp going, "What do you do for a college education that teaches you how to serve 70,000 people coffee 24 hours a day for free, right?" And he told me, um, I've done the Plyops Orchestra. You don't come to Burning Man expecting not one, not two, but three symphony orchestras playing at Burning Man. If you want to go listen to that. Um, I went off one year on search for the oldest man I could find at Burning Man, who was 89. years old.

Um, medical care at Burning Man, the whole medical care um, system. Um, there's a camp called Camp Pia Apology that tells you the dos and don'ts of how to say you're sorry to somebody because you've committed a an an embarrassing situation and you want to make up for it.

Um, I did an article last year on the history of the trash fence. Um, you know, because

Okay, really briefly, what's the history of the trash fence? The the purpose of the trash fence is because the wind blows all the time and the running gag was in the old days that before there was a trash fence, you could find trash from Burning Man in Oregon because it blew that far.

Wow.

You know, Oregon's only about 100 miles north. Um, in the early years of Burning Man, you could sit there on the Playa and watch those cute little umbrella tents that nobody had put anybody in the bottom of. The ones that look like little half domes, they roll just like tumble weed right across the pla, you know, till till they hit the trash fence and then they stop. But in the old days, they just kept going and going and going and going and could end up in the Indian reservation to the north, could end up scattered all over the place. So the trash fence really does serve a purpose in the dividing line. The other one, one time I'm at the trash fence There's a fully rigged Viking sailing ship on the other side of the trash fence on wheels sailing

okay

the playa back and forth across the playa and when they stopped I I was leaning over the fence talking to them and I said why do you have to be on the other side of the fence you know the other side of the trash fence and they go we've got no brakes we can't throw out an anchor or anything like that we can't be inside Another time I was ser helping a group of people serve coffee and croissants on the trash fence at like six o'clock in the morning and a member of my volunteer fire department in the little tiny town I live in comes walking up and we look at each other and go, "What are you doing here?

Don't tell anyone I'm here."

The trash fence the the trash fence has its own mystique and its and its own history. Um, of course, there's always been the the Burning Man myth that the band De Leopard one year was playing at the trash fence at 2 o'clock in the morning or something like that.

I think Deaf Punk.

De Punk, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Playing on the playing at the trash fence. You know,

they should start a new room. Yeah. Oh, there was really deaf leopard people.

Yeah.

I heard people say Taylor Swift. You like

one of the one of the reasons I do the newspaper articles. I I have a whole crew of people who are already contacting me going, "Katie, you're going to go to Burning Man and write a story again this year, aren't you? And I said, "Yes." And the nicest compliment I got was somebody that said, "I'll never go to Burning Man in my life. The only way I know about it is what you write in your newspaper stories." Right.

Well, has it ever enticed like people, you know, to to actually make the trip?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But part of it, too, is, you know, people go, "Well, well, don't you see things at Burning Man that that disturb you or make you uncomfortable?" And I said, "If I lived in a city with 70,000 people. I'd probably know that there are neighborhoods that I don't want to go into, you know, that have that don't have anything I want. So, I will, you know, um, yes, there are things you see that make you raise your eyebrows or you don't want to look at, but they are far outnumbered by the absolutely delightful things you never expected to see in your life that are happening all around you. The um, of all things, one year there was a uh what's what's the proper word? I guess a buggy that was being pulled by young women with horses bits in their mouths pulling on the spokes of the buggy and pulling people around Burning Man with a man sitting in the buggy with his little whip, you know, with the girls. And there happened to be a bunch of old ladies behind the counter in our in our um our service area that day. And there's a young man standing in front of us and we're just rolling our eyes going, "Oh my god, give me a break." Women pulling women pulling men in buggies with bits in their mouth. And this young man is standing at the counter. And he goes, "Can I tell you you ladies something?" And we said, "Sure." And he goes, "There's women lined up 10 deep waiting for their turn to pull that buggy around with that horse bit in their And we said, "Okay, whatever floats your boat, that's fine. You know, we're not going to roll our eyebrows." And

yeah, don't yuck someone's yum, I guess.

You know, that person probably that young woman probably went home from Burning Man going, "You'll never guess what I did this year."

It's and and you know, I can honestly say that too. You know, every year when I go home, you'll never guess what I did this year. You know, because there's something new or something you haven't been exposed to. Last year I went to a high tea for mothers whose children brought them to Burning Man.

And it turned out there were 30 of us there with our kids, right? And and we were all mothers whose children had brought them to Burning Man.

And we were inside the Volkswagen van camp and Volkswagen bus camp. There is a whole camp of nothing but people in Volkswagen buses. I never knew that. before, but but um you know this this lovely high tea with cucumber sandwiches and little cups of tea and stuff like that. And we all talked about how our kids had brought us to Burning Man. So, you never know, you know, people people waving you over from the from you know, you're walking down, people wave you over and total strangers sit you down and have a conversation with you.

I would love to bring my mom. She's uh well, she she just turned 88, but uh She's if she's interested, tell her what we tell everybody else. Look at Mobility Camp's page. She would not be the oldest person in camp.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

So, in terms of the articles you wrote, so what article did you write for last year?

Last year's was medical care and

Okay.

I've always been fascinated. I dislocated my shoulder one year. Um it was the first time in my life I fell over a pile of pillows in my little van and um first time my life. I ever remember sitting there going, "Help, help." And of course, my campmates came over, plopped me in a golf cart, took me over to Ramparts. The I had dislocated this shoulder before. The doctor that dealt with me had the shoulder back in place in probably five minutes, right? I waited an hour and a half in emergency rooms and he did five minutes. The doctor was from New Zealand and had was Moari Warrior and had full Moari face. tattoos.

Oh, Mauy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It was the most colorful doctor I'd ever dealt with in my life who dering his time at Burning Man. But last year, I wanted to talk to the head honcho. Um, and his name was George Weston. And before our interview even started, I said, "Mr. Weston, I Dr. Weston, I said, when I was a tiny child at Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children in Los Angeles, California, the head orthopedist was named Wilbur Weston. And George Weston looks at me and goes, "That was my grandfather."

Really?

That's the kind of stuff we refer to as plyia magic. And that you you will make astounding discoveries that you know were totally unintentional. Um but you know, just delight the heck out of you. And that that was one of them. Um learning how coordinated the medical services are. Um They have radiology departments there in trailers on the plyad. They have pharmacy. They have uh diagnosticians. They have an amazing amount with medevac helicopters to back them up with ambulances to back them up. Um and um they they don't like to talk about death, but there are some people that pass away every year from um instances. He told me there are also people that plot their pregnancy so their babies can be born at birth.

Not a great idea.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

Not a good idea at all.

Yeah.

But but it gave me a chance. I'd be glad to send you the story. It a good a good look at how you provide medical services for 70,000. The other one I'd love was the year a whole bunch of Army guys come walking by and we're right at center camp. So we're looking at them and we're going, "What is the army doing? What is it contingent of army in army uniforms, you know, outdoor uniforms doing here. They were coming to look at the center camp tent. The center camp tent covers an acre. The center camp tent for when they're conducting wars in the Middle East and they need to put up tents to house operations. They came to Burning Man to find out how to do it because we know how to do it at Burning Man, our tents have never blown over. Our tents have never blown down because years ago, some clever person figured out how to do it. And here we had the US Army coming to Burning Man to find out how to put up a good tent.

Well, there's a lot of trial and error over all these years. Like, yeah. Yeah. Um well, maybe afterwards I was wondering if uh maybe you could send me like some links for some of these articles. I could put them definitely in the show notes. That'd be awesome.

Oh, yeah. Well, um a lot of them I I have a a newspaper that I write for called the Anderson Valley Advertiser in Booneville, California. And I think they had I know they have all of them up on their website. Hopefully, I'll check. But the uh um it's a small regional newspaper and like a lot of them, it has just gone belly up in print, but it still exists as an online publication, as a as a daily publication. Um and uh I know they have all of my stories. I I do a print out of the stories every year and I have bound them and keep them at the front counter for people to read. If you want to sit in the shade for a while with a glass of cold water and read about my adventures over the last 12 years at Burning Man, you can do it.

That's awesome. Wow. So, so you wrote an article about mobility camp, one about the oldest person on the pla medical services at Burning Man. Like what other articles have you written?

Lost and found. Lost and found is a fun one. What goes on in Lost and Found is truly amazing. Especially when people are stopping at night when they've had a few too many to to get a glass of um you know it in Root Pile's case it was uh Moonshine. I remember that. Um and you leave your ID on the counter and you wander off with your glass of refreshment and the next day you're going, "Oh my god, I lost my driver's license."

Yeah.

Those are the people that are lost and found. Um before it was illegal, people flying drones and losing their drones um at Burning Man. Um you know, but but the whole process of reuniting people with the stuff that they lost one way or the other. Um the uh uh the um Playops Orchestra. I spent a whole day stay hanging out with the Playops orchestra finding out how you call coordinate chists and trumpet players and pianists and drummers and flute players into a symphony orchestra to play on the playa. And there's at least three of them now because there's the black rock philarmonica, there's black rock um is the black rock philarmonic

and I can't think of the other one.

That's okay.

And the play of pops You got to leave a, you know, a little bit of mystery so people can go like

the Blackhawk Symphony was the other one I was thinking of. But all of these all of these people are doing performances all over at the temple, at center camp, in in different places that are big enough because when these people play, hundreds of people turn up. And I think one of the delights in Burning Man is the variety of music you can find. Um, you know,

it's not just a big rave. like a lot of people think.

No, if you want new Roblox music, I they one year was the anniversary of a Grateful Dead concert and that happened that exact same day, you know, like August 28th or whatever. So, somebody had a sound tape of it and was playing it in their camp and a whole bunch of old people showed up. But they I had never watched young people hula hoop to Grateful Dead music before. I mean, that was a new first. I I've seen people dance to Grateful Dead music, but to consistently and very powerfully hula hoop through an entire Burning Man music or entire Grateful Dead concert.

So, what do you think uh you might write about this year?

I don't know. I'm I am tempted. The airport has always fascinated me. I have been given the opportunity. The airport actually does sightseeing flights for free in the morning. I hope I'm not giving out any secrets. Um but at the crack of dawn, um some of the pilots will offer free it's only one loop over the over the black rock city but to see Black Rock City from the air. So I I think this year I would I would like to go and see how they started from just people you know falling out of the sky and skidding across the playa and stopping you know and then turning around and taking back off again to the an extremely coordinated I mean following every the FFA um FAA reg uh regulation of

um you can while the Playa um the Burner Express will bring you by bus from the Reno airport to um Burning Man, you can also fly in. It costs a bloody fortune.

Yeah. Yeah, I looked into that.

So if you're cramped for time or whatever, you can fly in. They do the medebeck um the medevac uh people that have to be taken off the play go through there. Oh, really?

I loved the um the pilot we had the year that we were flying around. At the same time, um the hang gliding people were uh um being and and parachute people. It was parachute people that morning, I guess, were being dropped off and people were par you can get into Burning Man for free if you parachute in.

Uh I I don't know. I was told that like if you land with a parachute, you have to have your ticket. you at

I don't know. Well, this may be this may be old tale, but we're watching them come down through the sky and the pilot's looking at them and he goes, "You know what the other pilots call those people?" And we said, "What?" He goes, "Meatballs."

And he said, "And if they have flares on their ankles, they're flaming meatballs."

Wow.

So, to really uh research your article, I think you're going to have to do a skydive.

No, I'm already a gimp. I'm not going to

You don't want to be a meatball. Yeah.

No problem.

But but I have um you know I I've done it I've done the early morning flight once but I usually stay in camp and let the people who've never had the experience go up and have that experience of of seeing Burning Man from the from the air. And it's been a challenge when we've had people that have been in wheelchairs and have you know heavy heavy limits to what they can do to figure out if there's some way that we can find a pilot that can get them up in the air for the experience. But that's the kind of challenge we love to do.

Yeah. Wow. It's incredible. All right. Um, so how about you? Uh, where did it all begin? Where did uh little baby Katie like grow up? What's your story before?

I was traditionally was born after World War II in what traditionally was called a crippled child. We don't use terminology like that, but I was very lucky to find my way into Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children. as a child now at Shriner's Hospital for Children and they're the group that is dedicated to handling kids with weird orthopedic problems and I had weird orthopedic problems

and the I think almost you know what I learned there has stayed with me all my life in that you should never feel sorry for yourself because there's always somebody worse off than you are right and so I um I dealt with my disabilities as a college student I worked in a summer camp for crippled children. Um again, and many of us on the staff had disabilities at that at that summer camp to show kids that um you know, if somebody says you can't do that and you think you can pursue the idea, do it.

Yeah.

Um I I found a career for myself being a librarian where I didn't have to be up on my feet all the time. Um married, had children. Um and But always um from the time I found Mobility Camp in 2012, it was like finding a a second family of people. Um that you know all of us that are there have dealt with disability one way or the other. One of my favorite fellow campers was a medic during the Vietnam War. Um you know and it likes helping people. That's what he does. But we've had um we've had I've been very lucky and that I've never wallowed in self-pity or anything like that. My standard response to everybody is, "What can I do to help you?" I said, "That's the kind of mental attitude to keep." And boy, at Burning Man, we've found lots of ways to help people.

So, yeah. So, um, so what's it all mean to you? Like, what's the the impact of Birdie Man in your life? Like, how

what gets you to come back?

Curiosity. I I think I'm I've always been a very curious person and I swear on my headstone. I want I want four words on my headstone other than, you know, birth, date, death, so on and so forth. I want the words earth abides because I am a rockhound and I have an eternal appreciation for the gorgeous stuff mother earth can do. From the Grand Canyon to a opal from Virgin Valley, which is just north of Burning Man, where you can find black opal. I mean, you know, Earth abides. The other thing I want on the my gravestone is stay curious. And I think that's, you know, I just looked at the preview on the Burning Man website of what the art is going to look like this year and look at it and go, "Oh my god." You know, I I'm already working on the list of things that I want to see when I'm at Burning Man this year. And of course, you never get to all of them and you never can find all of them, but you know, the challenge is there one way or the other. And um just the delight I find year after year. I think, oh, it's going to be too hot. Oh, it could rain again. Oh, you know, this and that. No, it's the it's the, you know, seeing the sun come up over the playa at dawn. It's listening to 70,000 people. When the sun goes down at night, just as it goes down over the hills to the west, everybody howls like coyotes.

The primal scream. Yeah.

And there's like there's like nothing like 70,000 people howling like coyotes. Um the other thing that I think that touches me every year is the tributes in the temple to people who have been lost to you in the last year. First year I went to Burning Man, I read this one my the first tribute I ever read was this lovingly written piece and the guy was writing about his friend Henry and all the adventures that he and Henry had. together and that Hen he and Henry had 10 good years where they kept each other company and um there was always somebody that you need if you needed to talk to there was always somebody to talk to and you get to the end and you discover he has written this tribute to his pet turtle

while another human being the tributes to other human beings will reduce anyone to tears.

Yeah.

I mean you cannot go into the temple and not be moved. Um but as I have lost people in my life, I take quite delight in the tribute that I take to the temple um in their memories and uh um you know people's way with words and people's touching thoughts about other people, their families, their friends and stuff like that is just truly amazing. The temple is always amazing.

Uh so one other question question. I remember I was thinking about like we going back to like mobility camp was uh like people with mobility issues like yeah uh yeah like well how do they get to the playa and then like you know and like are they like RV or or tent like you know how do people like or what what type of uh

housing do people usually have because I imagine like if you're taking the burner express like bus I mean it's I if you're in a wheelchair I mean like must be hard to get on the bus And then like if you're in an RV, you know, like I mean,

well, given the spirit given the spirit of Burning Man, if you showed up at the at the Reno airport, got to the boarding area where your wheelchair has to be folded up after you get in the bus, the new friends that you have just made while you've been sitting in the waiting area going to help you get on the bus, are going to fold up your wheelchair and make sure the buses carry little storage trailers behind them. When you get to camp, if you're clearly clear thinking person, you have made arrangements for somebody from mobility camp with a vehicle to be waiting for you when the burner express comes in so your wheelchair does not need to be pushed a mile through Black Rock City in the dust.

Yeah, that was going to be the other question. Like, how do you get where you're going? Uh, if you're in a motorized uh I don't know if Burner Express would take a motorized wheelchair, but I know they they will take regular wheelchairs. Um, if you you know, lots people have RVs or turn to RVs. Um there are but there are people in our camp who come in in a Subaru station wagon, right? And they they you know lift the tailgate and they mount their tent off the back of it and um they've got their ice chest with their food because the only things available at Burning Man that you can buy is ice. So you better know how your food is going to go. We have we have one pot lock in our camp and we have an indoor dining area, but we realized years ago that so many people have so many different diets that we weren't going to be doing a regular food service program, but you could go out. There are pages in the guide to Burning Man where you can just go out, find the booth that's making pizza, find the booth that's serving breakfast cereal.

I call it foraging for food. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Foraging. I mean, you could you could literally um you could literally, you know, eat your way through Burning Man. Um you're you do need to have your water though. That's

yeah

important one way or the other. Um we've got people in like that in RVs. We've got people in vans like I am. We've got people camping in their cars. Um you can arrange with Burning Man if you're a dieh hard and you come every year to have your stuff stored in Reno and delivered to the PIA. So while you come in on the Burning Man Express waiting for you in the campsite is your um two tubs of gear or whatever it is that you have had stored for a year. So, your tent is already there and you know, three changes of clothes and your sparkly jacket and your spare flashlight or whatever and you just come in with your food.

And that's specifically for like mobility camp though, right?

No. And no, the this kind of thing exists all over the play. The the outside services that uh can provide storage for your gear while you're gone um out in the default world and your stuff is waiting for you when you get there.

I didn't realize that.

This year we we bought and really had a storage unit for the um camp uh in Fernley, but this is the first year that we have experimented with. Basically, the the equivalent of a small cargo trailer is dropped off. We put all of the stuff that makes our camp, the sun shade stuff and the tables and the chairs and the leftover wheelchairs and the leftover crutches and and the kitchen stuff and things like that. We this year um when we arrive at camp, the trailer will be in our campsite waiting for us and we unload we put our camp together during build week. When the thing is over, we fold down our camp and we put it back in the trailer which is magically taken off, stored someplace and brought back next here.

Are you talking about like the shipping container thing? Because I I know that they

not as big as a shipping container. I think ours is like 8 by 12 ft.

Huh. You know,

I've never heard of that. Like, but and that's not specifically just for mobility camp. They do like for anyone can do that.

They I believe this polite title is outside services um for uh arranging for things to um arranging for things to be uh delivered to the player. Of course, you pay a hefty price for it. But given the fact that mobility camp is a lot of old people, loading and reloading storage units is not real high on our list of priorities. In fact, my son came for the first time. I we talked him into it because we needed some young Bronny, you know, some brrawy young men to help us when it came time to move everything. Well, this year we don't have to move everything this year. It's right there delivered to us. And I know this goes on with other camps. all over um refinements every year it seems in um the ways to get your stuff on and off the plier.

That kind of brings me into another question I had about mobility camp. Um how many people with mobility issues just come by themselves or you know like or I mean I would imagine maybe people come with like a a more able person to help them.

Depends on the extent of your disability for the um ch I'm thinking of a college professor that had who was a quadriplegic on a respirator. Um he came with two attendants. So the attendant that was with him had the took care of him while the other attendant went out and partied. Then they swapped places but there was always somebody with the person. We had we had a guy come one year from Germany um quadriplegic who raced Formula 1 race cars with mouth controls.

What?

That's the most interesting man in the world right there.

You know, but he came with an uh he had rented an RV. He had paid people to make the ramp that went along the side of the RV to get him in. He had checked ahead of time to make sure that the interior path of the RV was wheelchair accessible. He came with two or three people, I believe. Um but but people if they want to come to Burning Man bad enough, they will do it. A lot of us um in my case in the years my daughter wasn't able to come. I went to the ride share board that meant that Burning Man does where there are people that are looking for a ride to Burning Man and arranged to meet up with people who shared the driving responsibilities for me from the California coast and back again. So, I didn't have to drive myself, though I've I've done it by myself and I I'm an independent honory old lady and I'm perfectly happy to do it by myself if I need to. Um, but um and there were a lot of families A lot of times there are three generations of family in our camp. We've had that more than once. We've had grandma, we've had the daughter, and we've had the grandson in camp together. Um, and everybody's taking care of everybody else. But our camp is the sort of thing like that if you need help with anything, you turn around to the first able-bodied person that's walking by and you go, "Hi, will you give me a hand with this?" And I don't think I have ever ever asked at Burning Man for help and not gotten it immediately. And one day it was really day it was like 100 degrees out and I'm walking across center camp plaza. I was headed over to the media mecca, the media center and I was so hot that that the sweat was running down my forehead and dripping off the end of my nose and it a young man who' probably had too much of something comes wandering up to me and he looks at me and he goes, "Grandma, what are you doing out here?" And I said, "The same thing as you having the time of my life." And he said, That's awesome.

No, that's that's that's what I say when people say, "What are you doing out here?" I'm having a good time. Thank you. I hope you are, too.

That's incredible.

I think most common the most common thing you hear is having a good burn as a question.

So, if uh uh let's see. Well, yeah, if anybody wants to like find out more about Mobility Camp or if people want to like donate or I don't know. Do you guys do like like take like like donation donations like like a go gofundme thing like or anything like that where

we don't do gofundme but everything you could want to know about us is on our Facebook page or if you google burning man mobility camp

um you'll even see me you'll even see me waving at you those pictures

what's the what's the name of your uh Facebook page is it

I I don't I didn't write it down in front of me but it's it's mobility camp Burning Man

oh okay

Burning Man ility to camp one way or the other.

But the uh um yes, we welcome donations. We are a 501c3 nonprofit. We are we are a proper nonprofit.

Um because I happen to be on the board of it, so I know that I just didn't think to have these things at my fingertips.

Oh, you can email me some stuff later, you know, but uh I just want you like I mean do you guys have like a website or is it just the the Facebook page?

I believe we have a website that you are talking to a computer, a techno nerd. I'm lucky I got my I'm lucky the the computer gods cooperated for this interview. Um, but the if you Google Burning Man and Mobility Camp, we will pop up in one form.

Yeah, I'll put I'll put it in the show notes. I'll

And I will I will send you more exact information at the end. And the other thing I would say is I will give you my email and people are welcome to contact me personally. That was my next question. Like if anyone wants to reach Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can either tell me now or you can uh send it to me later or

I'll send it to you with the with the link to the stories about Burning Man.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Okay. I'm just writing a note. All right. Well, thank you so much. This has been an amazing wonderful interview and I hope like, you know, more people can can learn about this and people out there would be like, "Oh, you know, if a a a quadriplegic from Germany can make it to Burning Man. Yeah. You know, I'm just wondering like how that conversation goes, you know, like if someone like the professor, you know, is it them like they kind of, you know, talking to their caregiver and just like I've heard of this Birdie Man thing and I want to go, they're like what?

If you have if you have enough money in your life, this, if I remember correctly, this man was was a computer in high up in the computer world, information science world. Um, but to his credit, he did every bit of advanced planning that you could do. So, he knew that when he got to the playa, he would have everything he needs. And a lot of times this involves big bucks. Um, but I can remember demonstrating, asking women back when we still wore them to bring panty hoes to bring men because if you wrap the air filter in your golf golf cart or you wrap the engine mechanism in your motorized wheelchair, the plyodust sticks to the panty hose and does not stick to the engine unit that you are relying on to keep you from having having a disaster one way or the other. And I can remember lining air filters with panty hose for different vehicles we were using. So sometimes it's just it doesn't need to be uh super fancy um things that you have to do to be able to come to Burning Man. A lot of times it's knowing what the limitations, you know, knowing to bring an extra air filter for your golf cart, you know, or or the things that you could need in there. And we have techie people um who have been doing it far longer than my time since my prior to my 13 years that have been doing it that can tell you all the clues of what you do. tell you what to do to make it easy for yourself. You know, I'm a I'm a big fan of really simple things. I tell everybody, you will never believe the value of apple cider vinegar until you get to Burning Man. And people look at me, what the hell are you going to do with vinegar? And I said, you're going to mix it half and half with water and you're going to put it in a tiny little spray bottle and you have been in an alkaline environment all day long with piodust that will parch your skin and your feet until you think you're going to flake up and dry away and fly away. And at the end of the evening when you've washed yourself off, you take your little spray bottle and you spray the vinegar and water combination and it restores the chemical balance on your skin and you don't dry up and flake away. And people go, "Really?" And I go, "Yeah, really."

All right. Well, Thank you so much. This has been a wonderful interview. I'm sure everyone's going to love it. And it's like, yeah, I've actually learned a lot here today.

Well, Andy, when you have it all put together, will you kindly send me the link information that send to our person who takes care of our Burning Man pages? Um, so we can link to your to your operation, too, because we always love the opportunity to spread the word. And I know you're not coming this year, but if you come next year, I expect to see you there. Oh, of course. Well, thank you so much.

You're welcome, Andy.

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