Meet Torria Lee (AKA Luscious Blue). She is a veteran black burner from Portland who’s first experience with the Burning Man world was SOAK in 2005. A year later she first hit the playa, camping at Snuggletown at Black Rock City in 2006. In later years she was part of a mutant vehicle group called the Pipes Of Passion as well as volunteering with the Post Office. I first met Luscious Blue in 2006 when she camped across the street from the last iteration of my first themecamp, the Cult Of Distraction. This is a great conversation about past playa and Regional adventures, as well as a discussion about the experience of being a black burner over many years.

Please visit shadowoftheman.com for all of the details and links.

#burningman #blackrockcity #burningmanpodcast #torrialee #lusciousblue #soak

Meet Adriana Roberts. She is one of the longest attending burners who first hit Black Rock City in 1993. In 1995 she started one of the very first “papers” on the playa called Piss Clear which she and friends ran for years (until 2007). After taking a little time off from Piss Clear she started a new playa publication called the BRC Weekly in 2010 which ran for a number of years before recently ending in 2023. In 2008 Adriana started her “Bootie Mashup” DJ crew which she has been doing ever since. Please enjoy Episode 21 with Adriana Roberts.

You can find the episode and all the links at shadowoftheman.com

https://bootiemashup.com/

http://www.pissclear.org/

https://brcweekly.com/

#burningman #blackrockcity #burningmanpodcast #adrianaroberts #bootiemashup #pissclear #brcweekly

Meet Megs (aka Meghan Rutigliano) who grew up in the East Coast and Midwest and first went to Burning Man in 2005 from Chicago. She helped the late, great Burning Man legend Tom Laporte record BMIR commercials. In 2007 she moved to San Francisco and applied for a job on a whim with the Burning Man Project as a receptionist. In 2008 she was hired, not as a receptionist but to help out with the Regional Network. She helped to lead the Regional Network for 11 years travelling around the world to many Regional groups. She retired from working at Burning Man in 2019 and in 2020 started working with a nonprofit called Global Eclipse. Then COVID hit and she moved back to Detroit. She now works with a nonprofit called Advancing Macomb (advancingmacomb.com), a nonprofit accelerator. Please enjoy Episode 20 with Megs.

Meet Athena Demos who started her Burning Man career in 1999 by immediately stripping naked and running off on a mobile viking ship that went off to go help raise the Man. She didn’t remember where her camp was so over the next few days the playa provided for her until she was able to find and return to her friend who brought her there. A few years later she helped organize the first LA Decompressions then became one of the first Regional Contacts for Los Angeles. She also helped to organize the LA League of Arts. In 2020 she helped create the first virtual reality Burning Man experience with the creation of BRCVR. When COVID cancelled BRC on the playa BRCVR helped burners globally connect and share. She has retired from being an active Regional Contact but she is very active in creating the next generation of Burning Man virtual reality experiences with a project you can find at burnersphere.com. They are planning on a June 2025 launch and if you visit the site you can sign up for the alpha version. Please enjoy Episode 19 with Athena Demos.

Meet Dan Miller, Larry Harvey’s roommate and the longest participating burner. Dan was part of everything from before the beginning. Dan and Larry lived together from 1981 - 2000, and only after they moved in did the realization occur that they had met earlier in 1978 at a raku (a kind of pottery that involves “burning” pottery in fires) multi-day campout at Pescadero beach. This campout would become the earliest inspiration for Larry Harvey which would eventually culminate in Black Rock City. Dan has participated in every incarnation of Burning Man. He has helped build the Man, it’s base, and pretty much done it all. These days (since 2018) he has a project called “The Brain of the Man” where he constructs out of leftover pieces from construction of the Man a brain that can fit into the Man’s head. He tours the brain around the playa and invites participants to write down thoughts which they insert into the brain. The brain gets burned with the Man each year. This is one of the best episodes so far, it is filled with amazing stories, some of which have not been told many times or at all. Enjoy EP 18 with Dan Miller.

Episode photo is by David Silverman

The Burning Man Journal article about the Man’s Brain:

https://journal.burningman.org/2022/08/black-rock-city/building-brc/participate/

Meet Inani Schroedinger one of the geniuses and instigators behind the Burning Man Philosophical Center on Facebook and on the playa. He first hit Black Rock City in 1998 and started off by volunteering with Pepe Ozan and did many things on the playa including helping to build the Man base. He has quite the interesting story and journey to Burning Man. He has a lot of stories to share, we only covered a fraction of them, he will have to come back on again for more. Be sure to stick around until the end for our very first musical number as sung by the guest.

Episode note: Inani is not a staff member of the Burning Man Project, and the Burning Man Philosophical Center is also the name of a Burning Man Project department that was started in 2015 (which precedes Inani's Facebook group).

Check out episode 16 with Xina Ocasio. She is a trans woman from Austin, Texas who first encountered the world of Burning Man by getting involved with Burning Flipside. After volunteering with this pioneering Texas Regional event she later made it to the playa, and in her first trip to Black Rock City she organized one of the first villages! She is an amazing woman with an incredible story. She is also part of a band you should check out called Sheverb. Enjoy!

Join us today for a conversation with the one and only Nurse (aka Jess Bobier). She has been burning since Andie Grace and her first hit the playa together in 1997. Nurse has been to BRC around 25 times and has been a fixture as a volunteer at Media Mecca for many years. She has a lot of interesting insights into the inner workings of the "Project" and a lot of great stories. And if you hadn't noticed she is a very good friends of Yoms (EP 14), that is who is in the episode art picture with her.

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