In the latest episode of PoliticsAside, Congressman Porter is joined by special guest Brian Burns - a bluegrass musician, festival promoter, Porter Group's creative lead and a seasoned 'burner'.
Brian guides us through the experience of taking part in the annual Burning Man Festival, which began in 1986 as a small artist's project and today is a cultural phenomenon hosting 80,000 attendees annually.
In the latest episode of PoliticsAside, Congressman Porter is joined by special guest Brian Burns - a bluegrass musician, festival promoter, Porter Group's creative lead and a seasoned 'burner'.
Brian guides us through the experience of taking part in the annual Burning Man Festival, which began in 1986 as a small artist's project and today is a cultural phenomenon hosting 80,000 attendees annually.
Welcome to, PoliticsAside, where I take the opportunity to introduce friends of mine, national leaders, international leaders and those that are even closer to home, friends for many, many years that are making a difference. So I didn't really know where to start this interview today. This one is very unique in that it is certainly, politics aside, I have never had a chance to interview a vinegar room. I've never really had a chance to talk in depth about what it's like to attend events for years and years on a dry lake bed in the northern Nevada, about three miles from Reno An extreme dust, extreme lack of water, normally extreme lack of facilities, and pay some $575 to attend an event in the middle of the desert, again on a dry lake. So today a very special guest is Brian Burns. Brian Burns has worked with the Port of Drupe for almost eight years. The handles are marketing and communications. He's a bluegrass musician. I'm a big fan of his talents. We played together in bands on the rock and roll side. He's a festival promoter, but he's also works for the post office at Burning man in Nevada. So, brian Burns, welcome. There's so much to talk about. Like I said, I didn't know where to start this session today, other than my background is real here in DC. I think your background is going to be showing something some of the things that happened at Burning man in Nevada just last week. So let's talk about what is Burning man.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Burning man is a festival. For those that don't know, it really started about 1986 in San Francisco by an artist who built this wooden sculpture that he decided to burn. It turned into a huge festival, far larger than could be handled in San Francisco. And, moving to the Nevada desert, about 1990, where most recently, there was about 80,000 visitors otherwise known as burners that visited, and this year, very unique, this was not a year where there was a shortage of water. There were challenges initially because the hurricane had left the playa which is what normally is a dry lake extremely wet. Now the Nevada desert is really, in certain areas, such as a dry lake. It is like clay. So when it's dry it literally is so solid you can barely penetrate it, even with the equipment. When it gets wet it turns into mud and slime. So historically in the Nevada desert, the Burning man festival again it's called Burning man and it is a festival has been held about three plus miles from Reno, nevada. It takes a number of hours to get there because of the traffic, and trying to get out in the middle of a rainstorm or after there's been a storm is a major challenge. So this past year again, the traditional dry lake was wet from the hurricane and then we had about three months worth of rain happen in about a 24 hour period of time. So imagine, all this is happening while 80 some thousand people are showing up for an annual festival in Nevada that normally ends on Labor Day weekend.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:So I thought I'd bring in an expert, brian Burns, unrelated to Burning man, but, brian Burns, we've been friends for a long time. Thank you for being part of our team. What is this all about? And I guess I should state for the record I have attended Burning man and I encourage all of you to attend if you have the opportunity. I did have a chance to attend and it was exceptionally dry. But I know that there are principles and I know that, brian, you're wearing a costume. So I guess first you should explain the costume and what that all means as a burner from Nevada.
Brian Burns:Sure. Well, thanks for having me, jp. It's always an honor to speak with you and spend time with you. I am a burner from Las Vegas and I've attended. This was my fifth burn. Burning man is a, I guess, started as a counterculture kind of festival where people were drawn together that had a different set of values. I guess back then it was. You would probably consider more of your environmentalists and ecology people that were concerned about recycling and global warming and things like that before it was you know, a fairly well known entity.
Brian Burns:So I think what happened was they started gathering and one of the principles is radical self expression. The desert, as you said, is a very hostile environment, even in the best of conditions, and we've suffered through every year. It seems like it's always something this kind of caught people off guard a little bit. But Burning man in general is a massive festival that is accepting of all people, as long as you can basically do anything you want to do there, as long as you're not hurting anybody else or breaking a law or doing you know. You want to walk around naked, you can do that. I don't recommend that in the Nevada Sun, but there's plenty of people that dress up and it's kind of a combination of Mad Max, mardi Gras, the pilgrimage to Mecca and like an ultra endurance race All together.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:So this year? I want to get back to it in a moment, but prior years tell us about the temperature, of the silt, the dust, what it was like in the prior years.
Brian Burns:So it's always been, as I said, very hostile environment. You come prepared that's the whole point of this is you prepare your camp this is a year-long endeavor with your campmates to. We have conference calls and spreadsheets and you're bringing this I'm bringing that to avoid redundancy, and it's not just about survival, but it's about creating an environment where it's fun and people are having a great time and you're doing things that you would never see or do in the default world, as they call it.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Well, I opened by saying it's about three miles from Reno. I meant to say it's about three hours. So if you add the logistics of actually getting there, you're not allowed to have vehicles during the festival. It's mainly for pedestrians and bicycles, correct? But what's a journey like just getting there, If it takes three hours waiting and traffic? What is it like? And plus, we're on that. Isn't there some ritual that happens as you enter for the first time?
Brian Burns:That's correct, you're right. So everybody's journey is a little bit different. I am jealous of people that live in Reno that only have a four or five hour drive to Burning man. My drive was about 14 hours, did it by myself and straight through, and the problem is, when you get there you never know what to expect wait time wise, because if everybody has the same idea about when to arrive, there've been waits to get in. It's a six mile journey from the pavement to the actual playa. There have been waits of 12 to 18 hours.
Brian Burns:I believe in 07, the last time it rained, they shut the entire gate road down for 24 hours and people were either stuck in the gate road or stuck on the highway waiting to get in. They closed everything down because of the same conditions that we have this time. It's a long journey and when you do get there, you go through the gate. Your vehicles search to make sure you don't have any extra people hiding or anything, any bad intentions. Then you travel through what's called the Greeders area, where there's people out there 24 hours a day that welcome you home. This is home to a lot of people, maybe only be for a week a year, but it's a very special place and the hostility of the environment makes it even more like you feel special being there. You have to prepare and when you do arrive for the first time, as a virgin burner, you're asked to do a snow angel in the dust, to make sure you get good and dirty and realize that dust is a big part of this festival.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Well, I'm glad there weren't cameras around in my day. I do remember that portion of the ritual, but I also note that there was a lot of billionaire hanging out there. There's these multimillion dollar RDS, and they would in some cases flying in their private planes. That just seems like the other extreme, or maybe I guess I should check payroll.
Brian Burns:We're paying you too much, Brian, or we're not enough to be there Certainly was not in a luxury camp, but those were referred to as People like Jimmy Buffett and Tony Shay the late Tony Shay from Las Vegas. These tech bros from San Francisco have a lot of money to spend, and it's become a little more like Koachela, where it's about the Instagram crowd that are there to get their picture taken. Nobody really has a huge problem with the luxury camps. However, in recent years, they've started wallowing those off. So, then, one thing about Burning man is you can wander into anybody's camp and you're going to be welcomed and fed and whatever you need, but the fact that there's people that pay huge amounts of money to have someone else set up their RV, set an art car up for them e-bikes and cook their food and take care of their water and their showers, that defeats the whole purpose of it. They're flying in on private jets. There's an airfield there, at Burning man as well.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:So they literally design a city and it's based upon the clock, correct?
Brian Burns:It's based on an ancient Greek city design where it uses concentric circles that expand the center of the clock where your hands meet. That's where the Burning man himself sits. South of that you have a center camp, which is where people can go for information and that sort of thing. The rest of the circles are all camps. Some of those are just one person in a car. Some of them have hundreds of people in their camp and they set up massively elaborate structures and things you can't even imagine that someone has put in the middle of the desert.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Well, I appreciate again, you're a musician, but that means you're an artist. I've seen your artwork every day because we work very closely, but what I marvel at is the creativity and the art forms that I was able to see and the magnitude and size of multiple stories high that they're constructed and even there was 747, I think, there when I was Tony King. Yeah, so tell us about the artwork, the creativity that goes into this and the expression of that, I guess freedom to do what you want to do in the art form, right.
Brian Burns:Correct. That's what draws me to Burning man. It recharges my creative batteries for an entire year. As someone who's a musician and an artist, I'm constantly looking for inspiration, and this place is chock full of it. This was my first burn in 13 years, so a lot of things had changed. I just felt it was time for me to go back, and I had some moments in the last couple years that made me feel like I reached a crossroads where I was like I need to go, return and do some thinking and hang out with my people. The 謝謝 Amazing.
Brian Burns:The last year that I was there, there was maybe 30 art pieces on the playa. This year they were over a hundred. So the things that have changed in my in the last 13 years were the the increase of art, which is, you're right. There's people out there for months ahead of time building some massive sculptures and amazing it's incredible. It truly is and they're there still taking them down and cleaning up. But the? It's just. You cannot believe some of the things that people come up with and and that they're it just blows your mind like the other thing that wasn't there the last time I was, there was LED lights, which have transformed burning man in the in 2010, you had to learn how to weld Sotter or something called EL wire. Just, it was like a little neon wire that you would use to light up your bike or your car or whatever and it now the advent of LEDs and lasers, and it's just incredible. It is simply blew me away what, how much it had changed in that regard.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Well, I I do appreciate you wearing your costume, but before you take it off and show us the real Brian Burns, explain that a little bit the choices that can be made and and what the theme was this year.
Brian Burns:Okay, so the theme for this year's burning man was animalia, which was all things animal. I worked, I volunteered, at a post office. This year there's three post offices. In fact, burning man, as remote as it is, it becomes the third largest city in Nevada. Literally overnight. 75 to 80 thousand people, there's three post offices, there's a newspaper, there's everything that you could possibly think of. There's six radio stations broadcasting all 24 hours a day. It's truly An epic scale of you know and the theme. The streets are all named, as you said, after clock, one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, but the concentric circles within are named a, bcd, e, fg through k, but every year those names change. One year it was American industry, so it was Ford and General Motors and you know car names. This year was all animal names. It's actually Mythical animal names, like Bigfoot, chupacabra. Those were the street names. So I, being at the post office and wanting to do pony express delivery, I I found this little outfit and thought it was pretty fitting and covers my ugly mug up good.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:And then you're able to choose your name.
Brian Burns:So sometimes you're you, as some there. There was a guy in our camp named brace, and it was because he fell off of a shipping container dancing on it one night and broke his back and was in a brace for three months. So sometimes they're not the most Ingenious names, but they, they stick.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Well, since you did a lot this year volunteering, I guess you can take off your mask. Okay, sorry, sorry, I didn't suggest that a little sooner. That's the real Brian burns. That I know right there. So you help this year. You help with the post office. There's three post offices and they were on the different clock on the different time, right? So tell us about the post office.
Brian Burns:So I thought that would be a really interesting way. I got a ticket last minute. I've been doing a lot of boondock Camping over the last couple of years, like just out in the middle of nowhere, very self-sustaining solar battery, solar power, all that sort of thing. So I was really prepared this year when someone called last minute with a ticket and they said we're at the post office. So they they Organized with the main post office in Gerlach, nevada.
Brian Burns:They go in every day out of Burning man. They pick up the mail, they bring it back. It gets divided amongst the three post offices for disbursement. So we deal with regular, what they call default world mail coming in to Burning man. So we deliver real mail, real USPS mail. I probably delivered 70 pieces of mail what we hand. My post office handled over 12,000 pieces of mail last week and Some of it is Interplia mail, meaning you can send a postcard to somebody in another camp, a message we deliver that for free. Or if you want to send a postcard out, we have international postage. That's what most of the people in post office do, for their gift is bring postage stamps and then people can mail postcards. We ought to give them free postcards and it was I had some of the most. I took a roll of 40 stamps. I gave almost all of them away at the window and that to me represented 40 Conversations with people from all over the world. Like it was incredible. It was a really interesting no money.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:You can't, you, you can't use money. Right, it's all charity or sharing, it's all gifting.
Brian Burns:It's a gift gift. There's no bartering, there's no money. You either give something or you receive something. There should be no expectations of why did this for you, so you do that for me. You do it because you want to do it, or you have extra, or it's a very communal kind of Society, even for only a week or two. Oh.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:We could learn a little bit of that here in DC, some of that caring, sure, sure we can look behind me right now we can talk to them about some more sharing. Yeah, so before I would encourage that Because of the fellowship, but before we get to fellowship, your creativity and you're an artist and you helped With the post office. You also created a postcard correct artwork with your talent right.
Brian Burns:I designed a postcard that was going to be my gift to the post office. So I had a 2,500 of those printed up. And we also had postcards from previous burning man's where we have big board where people could look in the window and say I want number six, number eight, and then we help them fill it out and and then we actually cancel. So I designed this cancel stamp as well, so it has all animals on it instead of the curvy line. So when you get a postcard from burning man it's got that special black rock city cancel stamp on. So that was my.
Brian Burns:They had a terrible shower, so I gave them my portable camping shower.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:We need amazing. I marvel again you do now I would expect sort of some of the creativity you're doing, for the quarter groups are gonna include now some of that artwork.
Brian Burns:It definitely inspires me JP.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Well, that's good, but also, I think some of our viewers would like to get a copy of that postcard. Is there a way you could, or do you have enough that people wrote you or sent you an email? Absolutely, we could take care of.
Brian Burns:This is what it looks like. This is the front of it, which was the sorry the Burning man kind of artwork, but I customized it for our post office and then just has a little, has a QR code showing where our camp is. This is a little ghosted image of the playa down here, and it was really fun. I learned a lot about mail, believe it or not, and I actually read Charles Bukowski's post office while I was there sitting in the mud. I'm like what a perfect time to catch up on a great old book.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:You're amazing. But thank you for sharing the logistics, some of the history and some of your personal experiences. But I'd like to take that to another level, because there is a very unique fellowship. It's pretty special. People really do say hi to each other. There's communications, of course. There's Wi-Fi available most of the time, but there's communications between people. So what was it like during the storm and what was it like then after? How did people interact with each other?
Brian Burns:So that's a great question After 13 years and all my previous burns were with. They were with a camp of my friends and their friends, so it was a lot of familiarity right off the bat. This time I was with a camp where I only knew two people that were one was my mechanic and one was my contractor in my house. So I knew them kind of well, but I wouldn't say I was there with my best friends. I was a little, to be honest, disappointed.
Brian Burns:I went early for the first time for what they call build week, so I went in on Thursday as soon as they opened the roads from the hurricane. I was there that midnight. I pulled in and I got up on Friday, saturday, sunday and the ones of us who were there early that had the special tickets to get in early. We built the camp and then people started showing up. We had a couple that flew in from Melbourne, australia, and drove out, rented a car in Reno and drove out and all of their gear was there from last year because we store it for them in Gerlach year round. We have a shipping storage area where we keep all of our the post office stuff. I found that the campers were a lot younger than me and we're a little more into the party boat like they wanted to go out and play and there was work to be done. But Well, play on the play.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Play on the play yeah. Yeah, play it Sorry.
Brian Burns:But what was very encouraging was that when things went south in a real hurry, that was the first time that our camp actually got together and had a meeting and said hey, this is what's happening. Somebody was killed last night. Somebody, we feel, think, was electrocuted. We need to be careful. We need to start conserving water. The portapotties are full. There's going to be nobody in there out of here for maybe 48 hours, so we need to start working together as a team. And that really brought our camp together.
Brian Burns:And you saw people who might have a big, beautiful RV and somebody in their camp was sleeping on a wet mattress or, as you had, their things had been completely soaked. We pulled together. It wasn't like a hurricane where people are caught off guard. We most of us were overly prepared. You go there with the thinking of you take enough for yourself and at least one other person, because you never know somebody. Something could happen, somebody. During build week, their trailer caught fire, their car burned, their RV burned, all their supplies burned. We took care of that. That's what's great about it.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:So the Bernie Manner organization is called the ORD right ORG. It's the ORG because I'm learning all the language to make sure we can communicate well. From the outside it appears that the organization, the ORG, the county WASHO, other communities, the emergency personnel were very responsive, correct, it appears that way on the outside.
Brian Burns:So what I will say is we did have Wi-Fi at the post office. We used that to coordinate with the other two post offices and with the post office in Gerlach we shared our Wi-Fi. But when the storm hit, that's when it became, that's when we really had to pull together and so we were sharing that. We considered that a resource because there were people that needed to let people know they were okay. Travel changes, try and get out, but the reality is there was nobody getting out. But you also had one time I was trying to send work a message like I'm okay, I walk outside and nothing's working, and there's 17 people standing next to the post office making international phone calls over our internet. So it's like there's still people there that can be selfish about it.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:By the way, I know you don't use a time card so I don't keep track of you every day, but until I saw the note, I'm okay. I thought you had been communicating like normal. I mean I saw it Good job as an employee perspective. But it did seem like all the agencies came together. The org did everything they could. They were very, seemed to be very, responsive. From the outside looking, it's tough.
Brian Burns:The radio stations were key because there is no cell service. When you first get there, you can get a signal in and out, but once 75,000 people descend out of the city, there's nothing. And some people bring starlink, but that's a new occurrence. And then, quite frankly, the organization and your camps encourage you to put your phone down and be immersive in the environment, your fellow burners, and not to worry about what's happening in the outside world. If you got kids and needs, yeah, they understand that. But if they get mad if they see you posting pictures on Instagram and things like that, it's not meant for that. So it's changed. The philosophy has changed a little bit. You have your old burners, who are very traditional, and then you have the younger generation. So where do you fit into that? I guess I'm an old timer now.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:So then you, being the old timer, explain, and I know we're running out of time, but why burn the man?
Brian Burns:I think it's a symbolization of counter culture, counter capitalism, that it's symbolic in a way that's different to everybody. I guess To me it stands for you know, do we have the resources and ability to feed, clothe and educate every human being on the planet? Of course we do, and now it's a matter of turning people's attitudes towards that, to bring that philosophy to the rest of the world. I think we have people. There's burners from all over the world. The one of the most amazing conversations I had was the temple man is a big party. When that burns, everybody's hooting and hollering.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:And when there's also explosions, there's fireworks, there's fireworks that works fast. That's the group.
Brian Burns:It's the climax of Burning man. The antithesis of that is the temple. The temple is a very solemn, sacred place where people go and leave mementos of loved ones that have passed away. It's a very sorrowful, hopeful place, though Very quiet, very serene, and Tuesday night when that went up in flames, there was not a sound. It's a completely different fire. The first one is full of party, the second one is silence, dead silence. 50,000 people sitting in a circle around a fire and nobody making a sound is pretty incredible.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Well, I really don't want to conclude until I ask you a really paramount question, and that is if there's one moment in time during and, by the way, you just got home, right, I thought you'd been home. I got back yesterday. I'm about 24 hours, so I was here.
Brian Burns:I waited until the people that needed to get home could leave. I waited for the roads to dry. I was borrowing somebody's truck and trailer so I wanted to make absolutely sure that I didn't get stuck, and I work remotely for you. So I figured as soon as I got out I could be back online, and I left at five o'clock in the morning on Wednesday and drove straight through and got home yesterday.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:SoWell. Credit to you, brian. No, you're passionate not only for the arts but for people, real people, and it shows daily. But what is one moment that you would like to share of this experience? And I know you just got home, so I want to get it fresh what is the one moment that you'd like to share from your experience? The last, I guess it'd be about three weeks for you.
Brian Burns:Yeah, the supermoon coming up was incredible. The people everybody would come out and howl at the sunset. I miss that, like the things that you do there. I noticed as I brushed my teeth this morning that I'm being very conservative with my water, which I should be doing anyway every day. Not just a burning man. But the moment that restored my faith in Burning man was at the temple. It was raining. They were going to shut it down because they closed it off to make sure nobody sneaks in there and kills themselves.
Brian Burns:I walked out through the mud and I stood there. It was raining and I looked around and I saw a woman she was 50, putting a tribute to her mother up. She had just finished it and I just said that it's really beautiful. She would be very happy about that. And she turned to me. She was from Switzerland and she talked to me for 25 minutes and told me her entire story about her mother being a mariner See for 20 years and the relationship they had and that she had an abortion 25 years ago and it was filling. Sorry for that. She was going to leave all of those things behind in the temple and when it burns, all of those things go away and we release those feelings, and to just sit there to somebody I had just literally met and just say and just listen. That's all I did was just listen. That was the most poignant moment of the entire thing for me.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Well, it's spectacular. Brian, I'm glad that you enjoy yourself but, more importantly, glad that you're home safe and sound and your remote as your boss, your remote work, is exceptional, so don't ever worry.
Brian Burns:One casualty I lost my Porter group, yeti mug.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Oh no, I bet we can figure that out that was not the worst of it for me. Well, it'll be there for an eternity then.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Totally Somebody put a mug off with it, If in fact it's able to continue. I know there is the vow that there will be no harm to the trace, but I know this year it's unique because of the massive waters and the floods, so we're hoping and thinking positive that that can be taken care of Again. I just wanted to say thank you, Brian, for sharing this experience, Appreciate all that you do and look forward to seeing you very soon in person.
Brian Burns:Thank you, sir, I appreciate it and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be able to do things like this. It means the world to me.
Hon. Jon C. Porter:Thanks, brian, be safe, take care. Bye.