Is BURNING MAN An Art Festival Or A NEW AGE Religion? | David Nino Rodriguez

Alright, folks, welcome to Nino’s Corner tv. I’m with Brad Olson, one of my favorite guests to talk about all, everything, anything and everything supernatural and aliens. But today we’re gonna be talking about burning man and basically, Brad, thank you for joining me. By the way, you go every year, right? I do now. I went every year for about two decades. Then I took a decade off and then I went last year in the rainstorm and the mudstorm and had such a fun time. I went this year. It was perfect weather and probably going to keep going.

Want to get you to come one year. I, I’m, I’m a little bit like, you know, now that I’ve stopped drinking, to be honest with you, I’m like, what’s the point? I don’t want to be like a, uh, just sit around like a bump on a log and just be a buzz kill for everybody. You know what I mean? Like, I, although I’m crazy, but I mean, and not only that, my back hurts. I need a good place to sleep. I don’t know what. I’ve never been there, dude. I’ve never been to burning man. So I’ve only heard about it.

I’ve seen videos on it, but I’ve heard it’s just complete debauchery. Just like hedonism. I don’t, I don’t know what. Just craziness, right? I mean, I’m like, I don’t know, man. I mean, I’d like to go with you because you’re like, you’re an old, you’re an older dude. And, like, we probably just kick back and, and watch everything play out. It’d be kind of fun. But, like, I heard it’s crazy. Just too crazy. Well, crazy is a relative term. I mean, it really is an arts festival and the kind of art displays you see out there are just jaw dropping.

You think, who would have the time to work all year to build a sunken pirate ship with a sea monster swimming around it? And then famous dj like Diplo coming out and doing a free show. And the other thing. That’s the thing, though. But it didn’t start like that. It was like, like everything that when it. The conception of everything, like, when it starts like ACL. I remember ACL was strictly country, right? And I went to an ACL concert and when I got there, I was like, oh, man, it’s completely woke everyone walking around. I mean, there was a guy walking around with just a robe on and a sock on his junk.

Okay. Naked. And I’m like, man, and then there was people there with families and kids. And I’m like, how is this mixing? How is the culture mixing? I’m pretty sure burning man doesn’t have families there. Right? It’s just a bunch. I picture, like, singles, just swingers, whatever, whatever. You name it, it’s there. But I doubt families are there. Right. It’s not a place for families. Right. Well, I’ve. I’ve seen kids and a few people take. Oh, yeah, not really any older than. Not yet any younger than, say, a toddler, but I’ve seen five, seven, six year old kids, but also up to teenage years.

But just think of it like this. The weekend of Labor Day, burning man is the third largest city in the state of Nevada, only behind Vegas, Henderson and Reno. You’re kidding me. No, no. It’s huge. It’s 75,000 people. So in any city of that size, of course you’re going to have debauchery. Of course you’re going to have your gay community. Of course you’re going to have weirdos doing whatever. Especially because it came out of San Francisco. So a lot of that culture comes out here. But it’s extremely creative, as you can see in this video. Where are you going to see anything like this? And do people show up to, like.

Like promote their art and, like, it’s all. It’s everything art. Correct. In the middle of the desert, it’s an arts festival as the official designation. They were hit up by the state of Nevada to pay 9% entertainment tax, which they fought hard with their lawyers saying, we don’t provide entertainment. Everybody that comes here provides the entertainment, but they still had to pay it. So when they say they don’t provide entertainment, how are they getting people there like Diplo and all that? Like, who’s paying diplo to go there? So it’s these stages that also do large festivals.

And I’m the producer of the how weird street fair in San Francisco, which is coming up a week from Saturday. You’re the producer of the how weird street festival? Wow. And I founded it. So it’s 25th anniversary. So we’ve been doing this a long time. As long as Burning Man’s become a large scale event. And so similar to how weird, we get these dj stages that are doing their festivals in the summer. They come out and do a stage with us. They’ll do a stage at Burning man and bring in top name DJ’s Carl Cox, Diplo.

Just name a few where DJ’s is here. But look at the symbolism already. I’m already checking out the symbolism of burning mammoth. I mean, come on, Brad, look at this. I know. And a lot of it is there to shock people or to question what is the motive here? But in another way, it’s kind of beautiful. It’s. Where are you going to see a statue like that? But a lot of these statues do get recycled. They get bought by cities sometimes. Or there’s one in a big industrial park here near me in northwest Nevada that came out of Burning man.

So they do recycle this art, and it is quite a factory for this kind of creation. But then, of course, they build the man. They build the temple. There’s the temple this year, and that goes up in flame on Sunday night. It was a pretty special year for me because my mom passed away a couple months ago, so. Sorry to hear. I didn’t. I remember you told me something about that. I’m very sorry. Well, thank you. But having the temple there. And one of the reasons I went this year was to do a memorial. Just write her name, her time of living, beloved mother up on the temple wall.

And then. So when it. It went up in flames on Sunday night, it was a very solemn experience. Nobody’s whooping, yelling, playing music. People were actually crying. And it’s a. It’s a really. It’s cathartic. Yeah. I mean, it’s just so many different things. And, you know, it’s hard to just pin it down to, oh, it’s weirdos in the orgy dome, or it’s the temple, or it’s the man burning, or it’s DJ’s. It’s all of that. Just like any big city, you’re going to have a whole bunch of variety of things to do. You could totally do it sober.

You could go wake up at sunrise and do yoga every morning. You could run the Blackrock marathon. We could play volleyball. There’s just so many things to do that you don’t have to feel compelled. And people from all over the world go to this. Correct. How many people show up to this? Is it like 100,000? Is it over that? Is it 75,070? 5000 in the middle of the desert? Uh, so is it 75,000 over the course of what, how many days does this last? So it’s nine day festival. It kind of builds. Nine day. Yeah. So is this temple strictly for people that have lost loved ones or what, what is, or just whatever.

It’s just whatever. I mean, it’s a beautiful building. Boy, you should have seen it lit up at night. It looked like a gothic cathedral, and it could be whatever. So, for example, there were a couple big banners of all the Israelis that were killed on October 8. So people come from around the world, and they know you can see some of the memorials there on the wall, pictures, mementos, and handwritten notes to people. So it’s to someone who didn’t really grow up with a lot of religion in their life. And I would say this is true for most burners.

This is kind of the way you have a funeral or you say goodbye. Wow. Yeah. You’re saying. So a lot of people, because they torch this entire structure. Correct? Oh, yeah. Wow. So, like, you go there and you put your memories in there, or there’s someone you’ve lost, loved one, or whatever it is, and you write something. I see a lot of, like, handwriting there on the filler right there. And what? And then you watch it go up in flames. And it’s very symbolic about the person you lost. And I. Oh, man. Wow. All right, so this is.

This is really for people that have found another outlet or direction in life through their spirituality. Right. They get more substance out of this than, like, going to church. Yeah. Or even going to a funeral or doing a memorial service. This is the memorial service. Burners, who we collectively call ourselves, we’re kind of like a family. People support each other. And when you see a beautiful piece of art like this, which is modeled after gothic sacred places, byzantine cathedrals, you really get a sense of the power of place. It is a sacred place to many people, as you can see attested from all the writing and pictures on the wall.

This is fascinating. You know, I really. I’ve never really understood the therapy behind it or that, well, how people would find this very cathartic. Now, I’ve always just thought of debauchery, sex and drugs. Well, that’s how it gets played up. And they do have an orgy dome. I’ve never been to it. Even though there’s an orgy dome? Yeah. Yeah. You got to be a couple. See, that’s the problem. If I show up there, I might. So if a sancho shows up through the orgy dome, everyone might get pregnant? No, but I’m just saying, like, that’s pretty crazy, an orgy dome.

So there’s. And then there’s families there with kids, but they don’t go in that. So how big, how many acres is this? Oh, it’s many square miles. Yeah. You can see it from outer space when it’s lit up at night. There are some pictures on the Internet that showed it orbiting satellites taking pictures of Blackrock City is what it’s called, and it’s several miles. It’s named after the company, Blackrock. There’s a lot of symbolic LLC to me. There’s a lot of, you know, call me the conspiracy guy, but you are too. So I would imagine you think the same thing, right? No, it’s a nonprofit organization called Burning Man LLC.

I know the directors. I knew Larry Harvey, the guy who started it. He passed away a few years ago, and his vision was just to make it this new kind of artistic tableau where you could burn art projects. Where else can you go to a festival and burn something like this? But it’s also another thing I really like about burning man is you cannot spend money there because it’s all a gift economy. All you do is bring around a cup, but now they make you show an id because undercover cops have been busting the bars that serve for minors.

But you just go around with a cup. You go to any bar, and they’ll pour you a drink. Alcoholic, non alcoholic coffee in the morning. We had meals there. There was a place called Beverly Grills that was serving quarter pound burgers. Go back, get another one if you’re still hungry. I mean, it’s a beautiful thing to see the gift economy at work, where people feel like their generosity is how they can give back to this community. Wow. Wow. And it’s six days long, so, I mean, a lot of people don’t stay. Do you stay the full six days? I went six days, but actually goes nine days.

So it’s midnight on Saturday. So, technically, Sunday morning at midnight, they open the gates, and then they burn the man on Saturday. They burn the temple on Sunday. And then Monday, Labor Day is exodus. That’s when most people leave. So it’s really all day, starting that Sunday through all day that last Monday. By Tuesday, it’s pretty much a wrap. So I’ve never. I have lost, like, the lackluster to really go to these things. I don’t know why. I mean, I. Maybe I’ll go to the next one with you. I. Maybe I probably will, because now I’m, like, intrigued.

I want to see this just to. Just to mark it off my bucket list. But, you know, I’m just so against anything that becomes commercialized. And you’re telling me this is not really commercialized at all? And that’s the beauty of it. In fact, they fight very hard to keep any kind of commercialization out of there. The only thing you can spend money on is they do have ice trucks, and you do need ice for your cooler. It’s the only thing. They used to have a cafe in center camp. They did away with that. These are what.

Look at that. This looks really demonic. Well, I mean, yeah, so I think a lot of people dress like this just for the shock value, because a lot of these videos come out. So, for example, when they burn the man, it falls to the ground. It just becomes this pagan ritual, and people tear their clothes off and run around it naked. It’s those kind of videos that leak out that just, I think, just drive christian Americans crazy. But it’s not really like that. You don’t have to participate in anything you don’t want to. Well, you know, would you say that maybe this is kind of new age religion? It is, definitely.

So this is. This would appeal to the youth. It does. And so Christians would have a problem with this? Yeah, they do. And they’ve had a problem with it since its inception because people wear hats like that. And although what you see here is called the lamp lighters, they are the oldest camp at Burning man. And they have these oil burning lamps that they put out every single night at sunset and come around in the morning and collect them. It’s kind of this new kind of ritual which incorporates art and costuming and art cars and then these large scale art projects, which you’ll never see anywhere, like this.

This is a new one shade structure. You just see this thing blowing in the wind, and it’s just so cool. You just think, who would spend all year building this? And burning man, as an arts festival does appropriate many millions of dollars to these projects. The artists will come to them. They can actually start the proposal prod at the artery at burning man the year of before and put a proposal in, and they will allow a certain amount of money to build a lot. Are there people, like, running around naked and, like. I mean, because that’s what I saw at ACL.

I was like, wow, that. Really? Not completely, but the guy had a sock on his junk, and I was like, okay, that’s pretty. That’s naked to me. But I couldn’t imagine kids running around. No, no, they don’t. And it’s not as prevalent as you might think. Probably one in a thousand. You’ll see naked because it’s hot out there. It’s 90 plus degrees and doesn’t really get cold at night. Only about 60 or maybe 55 degrees at night. And it’s just projects like this. I didn’t even see, this one looks like Pinocchio or the Pied Piper or something.

Sometimes they’re animated, and then you go back and see them at night and they’re all lit up, and they. The things at night are equally as impressive. Wow. So do all religions go to this? I mean, people of all religions, or is it just new age like. Like, do you see buddhists there? Do you see, you know, you know, whatever, Hindu. Do you see christians? There are christians there with, like, their tent up with, like, a cross or Jesus saves, or are they handing out pamphlets? I would imagine. I would imagine you see some of that? No, no, not really.

No. If they are religious, they’re just not really out with it. Nobody’s really pushing any kind of ideology out there. It’s just sort of a live and let live. And we’re all out there to see this incredible art. I saw this, the heart of a city made out of metal. It’s like. You mean this one right here? Yeah. Who’s got a year to fabricate all these little houses out of metal and then build this huge art project? Then you got to get it out to the playa and something like this, it might have a fire burning feature out of those tubes at the top so it wouldn’t burn down, but then you got to get it out.

So you see biggest flatbed trucks bringing these art projects in and out of burning man. And it’s a city, a whole city devoted to this art. This is incredible, man. So do a lot of people get. I mean, I would imagine you have to bring tons of water, cold water. Is there medical tents all around this area or. For sure, yeah. Cause I would imagine people would have heat strokes, right? Yeah, you could have heat strokes. So two years ago was a very hot year. It got into. It was 105 degrees several days in a row.

I was going to go that year, but then I saw the weather forecast. I think I’ll skip this year. And then I went last year, and they had this freak rainstorm that came, and, of course, that was called the mud apocalypse. And Sherka was out there. I know you interviewed him, and then you and I talked about it afterwards, but some people were totally stressed out. I got to be back at work. I got to leave. Well, you can’t leave. There was this much mud, and we were leaving. You saw people that tried to make a break for it during the rain, and their cars were not only stuck in the mud, they were up to their bumper in mud.

That’s crazy. Tried to tell them, don’t leave and when they got stuck, they said, you are our last priority. We’ll pull you out when we have time. So then those people got stuck for days. See, I live in the DEsert. I’m from the desert. So this sand, to me, is every day. Right? And I know better than that. You don’t risk anything. When you’re. When it rains like that, that mud becomes sloshy and you spin your tires. You just go deeper. You go nowhere. Yep. Yeah. It becomes cement, too. Then when it dries, you really screw your car up, too.

And this. This. This really says a lot for TOday’s culture, though, man. It’s almost like they’re looking for answers, you know? And they find it here, like a lot of the Youth feel like, you know, I would imagine, you know, especially today with, like, so many broken families and kids that never grew up with fathers and. Or, you know, foster kids or whatever, this is where they find answers. This is where they feel like they can be free and find some kind of cathartic therapy in this, right? Well, it’s everything to everyone, let’s put it that way.

You can find whatever you want. You want to get shit face drunk in the bars every night, knock yourself out. You want it? So there’s bars, there’s tents. Yeah, yeah, free bars. Just walk right in with a cup. I’ve heard there’s also, like, sobriety bars or something like that. Is that. Is that true? Like. Yeah, there are. There’s a whole. There’s even non alcoholic camps. And it doesn’t have to be that way. You can go to this event and see visual displays like fire dancers and these art projects. This one is called El Pulpo Magnifico, the magnificent octopus.

And it’s the most famous art car out there. Wow. And this all started with. With. With a burning man. One, one, uh. What was it, like two stories high? The burning man. When it first. When it first started, it was. See, it reminds me of where I grew up. Right? So in El Paso, Juarez, we would all. In high school, we would go out to the desert, man, and we. And we’d. A lot of the kids that had a little bit more money would. Their dads would lend them, like, you know, their trucks and their forklifts and shit, and they would pile on pallets of wood, right? We had our.

We basically had our own burning man out of here before burning man. I don’t know how long burning man’s been going, but we’ve been doing this for the last 50 years in El Paso, where all the high schools would get together and have this huge torching of pallets that were stacked two, three stories high. And that, to us, was, like, amazing. And everyone would be out there. It was called the bonfire, right? And then all of a sudden, I heard about burning man. I was like, oh, well, we do that anyway out here. We’ve been doing it.

We do it, like, every. Every other couple, every few months. We do that out here. Right? In high school now, I don’t think they do that anymore, but to think that they would turn something like that into something like this. This all just started with a wooden man that they would torch, and that was it. And then it. And then it evolved from that, right? Yeah. So I published a book ten years ago called the Tribes of burning man. That kind of illustrates how these big camps are formed, how they build these art projects. Bring out these sound system.

Look at this party, man. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. And everybody’s in costumes and dressed up. Started out at Baker beach in San Francisco. Larry Harvey just went through a breakup, and he built this man and just invited a bunch of friends out there. And like I said, it was a bonfire. They just had a little party on the beach. So they thought that was pretty cool. Let’s do it again next. And then it was 8687-8889 and then in 1990, the park service shut them down on Baker beach, and they were doing it on summer solstice, June 21.

So they had to pull the man off the beach, and then they’re just storing it. And then this other group, an artist group called Cacophony Society, they were doing these campouts with artists and all these kind of primitive archives and displays. Say, hey, bring your man out to the Blackrock desert. We’ll burn them there. So that was the first year, 1990. They burned the man on Labor Day weekend. And then I got involved in 1995. By 1996, I was so inspired, got a couple friends, and we built this burning alien, which was the very first burning art piece at a sound camp.

And we were also doing one of the original sound systems out there playing electronic music. So, dude, you’ve been at this since its conception. You knew everyone behind this. I do. So you. This is very intimate to you because you knew it from the very beginning? Yep. Wow, bro. So if I’m going to go with somebody, it’s got to be you. It got to be me. Yeah. There’s El Popo magnifico. Dude, I’m going to go next year, and we could do lives from there. Everyone has Internet out there, right? Yeah, you can get Internet. You do kind of need to bring your own, but we’ll find someone who’s got it.

We could do some lives or at least capture a lot of video and then play it out. Oh, I think I’m going to. So, yeah, let’s go. Me, you and Laura. Let’s. Let’s do this. And we could all do shows out there. Yeah, I think my audience would really love that. And audience, let me know in the comments. Do you want to see this? Would you like me to go out there next year and, and knock it out with Brad Olsen and Laura Eisenhower? Cause, man, I think I’m in now. This looks so fun. It is.

It really is. And don’t worry about feeling like, oh, I’ll be tempted to drink. You don’t at all. You do what you do. Yeah. Yeah. Is what you make of it. So, for example, I like to get a good night’s sleep sometimes. So I’ll go to sleep at midnight and wake up at 08:00 a.m. although it’s pretty loud. Wow, look at that. That lady looks. She looks a little older. Yeah, it’s all ages. It’s really an adult playground, if I were to describe it in a couple words, because a lot of these art pieces are interactive.

You can climb on them, you can get on art cars, and they’ll take you all around the playa and you’ll go see all the art projects. And they have art projects miles out of town. They call it the deep playa. And some of those I didn’t even see. You just don’t have time to see everything. There’s so much to see and do, man. I bet you the Porta potties. How many porta potties have this place? They have hundreds, but they do, my gosh, daily. It’s not as bad as it used to be. This is incredible, man.

I’m going to go ahead and share some other stuff from your experiences there. I have a. Let me see if I can share it. Yeah, here we go. Yeah. And here you’re at. What is this right here? This is just these, the three planets of Earth, the moon and Mars. Life size scale. And I’m looking at Antarctica down there, places I travel to, satellite imagery, really cool. Down the Palmer Peninsula and where I traveled through southern South America. So it’s this cool art piece you can also see on Mars Olympic mons and on the moon. I asked the guy where the, where the first moon landing was on the on the moon.

And he showed me. And this is just one big. This thing lights up at night, so you can study it and look at it. You can see it from miles away, too. They’re huge. Jesus is beautiful, man. It really is. And it’s educational, too. That’s another thing that’s kind of lost on people is that there are scientists that go out there and build Tesla coils, and you’ll see. I’m surprised. I’m surprised no flat earthers showed up and torched this. Yeah. Where are the lands beyond? Yeah. Wait a minute. This is incredible, man. I am just really.

Would that happen? It could be a life changing experience. I went with two virgins this year, which are very first timers. My girlfriend was one, and then a kid I grew up with in. In Illinois, and they both had an amazing time. Yeah. Because, like, having sex at burning man is like having sex in real life. It’s not so easy to come by if you don’t know the secret handshake. If you want to learn what to do to have burning man sex, you’ve come to the right place, I. I would imagine. Man, look at this. So it’s.

It’s kind of a graded. It’s. It’s a culture of its own. Huh. It really has. Yep. And the people are called burners, and they take those ethos with them back to the default world, is what it’s called. You know, at the rainbow gathering, they call it. When you go back to the real world, they call it Babylon. Here’s the default world. Yeah. So this is. People just forget their egos here. They just kind of let their hair down and they just be who they want to be, whatever it is, during burning man. And it’s. This is.

This is. It’s almost like. It reminds me of, like, that movie the purge. But you’re not out there. I can’t say this word. I’m fluff to because this is fluffy. But, you know, you’re not out there ending people’s lives. You’re out there just having fun and whatever. Whatever that means to you. Right, exactly. And you get out of burning man. Exactly what you go there to seek if you want to. Just see incredible art projects that’ll blow your mind. It’s all there. Jump on an art car. We had an art car in our camp, and we’ll go with my camp next year called Titicaca.

And it’s a whole bunch of old school burners from Reno, and they have an art car that we can jump on. I went and saw the man burn and a couple other. Every night there’s a different big wooden art project that burns. So the first night on Thursday that we saw something burn was this giant utility cone, ten story tall. Somebody made an orange utility cone but packed it with fireworks. They were all shooting out of the top. The whole thing burned down. The next night, Friday night was a king from a chess board that was also about six stories tall that burned down.

And then, of course, the man on Saturday night is just the most phenomenal thing on fire you’ll ever see. Not only fireworks show, but an explosion of a petroleum bomb that got the man started and then the whole thing and goes up in flames. Well, let’s. Let’s go through these myths, the five myths of burning man. So, want to have sex at burning man? One, so if you. If you’re reading this, you’ll probably fall into one of the three camps. You have sex at Burning man. Number two, you don’t have sex at Burning man. Three, you wish you could have more sex at burning Manda.

People belong to the first camp. I get you. Okay, so it’s basically, let’s go through these myths here. Some people just don’t have sex at burning man. Some just want to apply a miracle. What’s apply a miracle? A beach. Well, as we said, this is a new kind of religion for a lot of people who maybe didn’t grow up with religion in their life and are finding it out at burning man. But they’ll use terms like miracle, which is just maybe you want to get a new career. The miracle would be you meet an employer who needs your skillset, or you meet the love of your life, or you get a little trinket that turns out to be something really profound, or somebody gifts you a tool that you really needed.

It’s just things like that here. It says burning man is just a big old orgy. Wrong. Says it’s nothing. There’s place that does that. I’ve never even been there. My girlfriend didn’t want to go. And it’s just a myth. It’s. It’s. It’s mythical, I should say. But it gets. And it’s probably people you don’t really want to be around. Anyway. I’ve been to the, you know, in Austin, there used to be hippie Hollow where everyone was naked. And I went to it one time, but I wasn’t naked. And I was looking around, I was like, well, I don’t want to be here.

This is nasty. And I left. I mean, so it’s everyone has their own thing. I mean, it’s. Yeah, so. So it’s. Okay. So wrong. It’s not just a big old orgy, but there is a place for that if you want that. Correct. As there is every big city. People want to go to a gay club. They want to go to what? Sweat. Sweat lodge. You can do that? No, it’s so damn hot there. Not everyone is naked. No. 99% are wearing clothes. It said one in a thousand. You’ll see. Yeah. So here’s the second myth. Everyone is negative.

Burning man. Wrong. Wrong. So you, Brad, you’ve known these promoters from its conception. Yeah. That’s crazy. I didn’t know that. Yeah, because I lived in San Francisco from 95 till just six years ago. Wow. It’s easy to have sex at Burning man. Wrong. Because if you’re ugly. No, just kidding. Everyone is filthy for. That’s. That’s kind of what I was thinking, too. Wrong. No. So one thing about you can bring your own shower. They like you to have a evaporation pond. So after you take a shower, the water goes out to a black mat and just evaporates.

But we didn’t have that. So we went to the doctor Bromers only because the son of doctor Bromers, who inherited the company, is a burner. And he got 210 people in his camp. And they did a human car wash. So in that case, stripped down naked, although some people were wearing bathing suits. And you get into this washing hall, and then above, they’re spraying you with Doctor Bromer’s soap. And it felt good to wash the hair and wash the body off. And then they come in with water, fresh water, and you rinse it all off and then go out.

And there’s a dj playing, and most people are still naked and just dancing around. But it’s not creepy or weird or. No. Everything is about consent out there. And they even said before you go into this, if you’re a man and you’re getting aroused, you just got to walk away. You cannot. Can’t show the wood, really. So Sancho won’t do very well there. Okay, already sancho has to leave. So. Okay, number five, it’s too hot to have burning man sex. Wrong. Well, that’s not. That’s not entirely wrong. It is hot as balls. Well in the day, but it cool off at night.

My girlfriend hooked up. You know you want to. There you go. Five tips to help. And then they give you the tips to have sex at burning. This is all about meeting your partner, right? And that is very rare, although it’s. So I’ve heard people, like, overdose there and there’s people like, you know, I mean, I’ve heard they’ve had to, like, helicopter back people out of their hell of a camp. Is that the word? What is it? Helicopter back? Yep. Air vac. Right. That what it is? Is that true? Does that happen a lot? Two people in their thirties who were found unresponsive, almost certainly drug overdose.

But again, you look at any large metropolitan city over the course of nine days, you’re going to have a fentanyl overdose or two. I mean, it’s statistically, on average with any large city, so don’t do. So this wasn’t really that big in the nineties. When did this really explode? Like the last ten years? More like the two thousands started getting really big. But I went to my last burn in 2012. I had gone every single year since 95 except one. And then I took a decade off and went back last year and I just couldn’t believe how big it had grown from that period.

So everything has scaled up in a big way to be a large city. I mean, there’s no doubt about it. You can fly in. Elon Musk was there this year. He flew in his plane. There’s an airport. And we try to get up to join the mile high club, but we’re next in line. And the guy who was doing the flights, it was late in the day, he’s just like, I gotta stop. So. So there’s a, there’s a guy there in a plane. What kind of plane is it? Cessna. But in this case, it was one that had a cabin and couples were going up.

You know, you sign up on a list and you wait in line and it’s free. Everything is free. Everything is the gift economy. And so if your name gets called, you get to go up and rock it in the pilot’s cabin. Look at this. Wash your ass. Seriously, wash your ass often and then wash the rest of your body, including your genitals. Wow. I got to tell you, man, I think I’m going to go with you next year. Let’s make it happen. I’m going to do it, Mandy. Super fun. Yeah, I think I’m going for it.

Folks, give me your opinion on the, on the comments down below. I’m with Brad Olson. And, Brad, we’re now going to go to the back channel and talk about something a little more serious. We’re going to talk about 911 and what really happened on 911. Brad knows quite a bit about this. We’re going to social, show some videos and also talk about this and the technology behind it. And we’re going to Nino’s corner tv. You do not want to miss this. We’re going there right now. Brad, thank you so much for coming on and dispelling all the rumors and myths about burning man.

It actually seems like a really cool costume. I’m in my twenties and thirties. I can’t believe I never gone to this. Oh, man. Never paying child support. So you can take a week off. Everybody got to week off in their life. I can do that. Yeah, but we could film from there. Yeah, we can. And, you know, I’ve got a ranch in burning man country just 2 hours due south. So the base camp met all my friends, and then we went up together and came back and hot showers and a hot tub in my shop, dude.

And you’re the guy. You knew the promoters from its conception. And now one of how many promoters were there? So it started out with seven directors, but Larry Harvey was the founder. He passed away about five, six years ago of a stroke. He was very heavy chain smoker. And now some of the directors are the head of the board, and there are now 20 directors. Now, of course, they’re more money minded, and you have to be. Their budget is $45 million to put this on every year. So it’s a pretty penny to produce this event. And that’s why the ticket prices are so high.

What is it? What does it cost for a ticket? 575 plus 175 for a car pass. But what about for, like, vip or, like, if you don’t. If you want to be in a vip area, let’s say you want to hang out with Elon Musk can’t. You won’t get close to him. Okay, so, so, but is there, like, I’m sure there’s tiers of tickets, right? There are tiers of tickets. There are vip tickets. There’s also what they call plug and play, where you could pay $4,000 and have an air conditioned yurt set up and all your meals prepared and even our cars and bicycles to use.

But that’s kind of for the bourgeoisie we like. There was a kid, I say kid, but he’s like 20 something years old. And I remember this is like my only burning man story, because. But I never went. But he would come up and give me IV’s in Las Vegas. He was a nurse, and he’d be. And I’d always need IV’s from training. This is when I was having training camp in Las Vegas. And I’ll never forget, man, he was all excited, man. He was getting ready to go to burning man and he. No, no, no. He just got back from burning man.

That’s what happened. He just got back. This was like ten years ago. Longer than that, man. This was about twelve years ago. And he just got back from Burning man. And he was telling me what a great time he had. And then he was hooking me up with the iv and we were talking about it and I was like, man, I really need to go. Maybe after this training camp, I’ll go. I’ve always been putting it off to the next year, to the next year. Anyway. That guy just feels like, you know, I just. He kept telling me, I just feel like this was my only chance to go.

I don’t know why. I just. I just felt like I had to go this year. The guy died in a motorcycle accident two months later, man. And we got to make a memorial for him at the temple then. Yeah, his name was a. Brad. That’s. No, his name was. Sorry. Not Brad. His name was Jesse. Jesse. Your name is Brad. Sorry. Done. Not trying to jinx you. This is incredible, man. I’m going with you, Brad. Next year. Let’s make this happen. We’ll put it out there and let’s just have a good time, bro. I’m face paint or something.

I don’t know. Yeah, yeah. We’ll get you costumed up. Yeah. With a couple veterans. We’ll show you the ropes. All right. Cool, man. Yeah. And who better to go with than Brad, folks? All right, Brad. Thank you for coming on. All right, folks, we’ll see you. Knowscorner tv. We’re going to dive into 911 and this. It’s an important one. It’s a good one. Brad. Where can people find you? I’m at Brad Olson.com if you want to check out my conference schedule. Speaking at three conferences in October and booking already in 2025. And then all my books are@cccpublishing.com including my best selling, award winning esoteric series.

And much of the information we speak about on Nino’s corner comes out of those esoteric series books. Yeah, incredible reads, folks. This guy knows his stuff. All right, Brad, I will see you at ninoscorner tv right now. Later.
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