Shadow Of The Man

Episode 28 with Monique Schiess is out now. Meet Monique who first landed in Black Rock City in 2004. By 2007 she was co-founding Afrikaburn with Paul Jorgensen. She helped to run Aftrikaburn for 16 years before she was “abruptly let go”. She is currently working on a film about Afrikaburn (see links below). Monique was no stranger to the wild before hitting the playa, she had experience out in the bush in South Africa camping and ...

Episode 27 the Season Premiere is out now. Meet Michael Mikel (aka Danger Ranger) one of the earliest founding members of Burning Man. He first encountered the Cacophany Society in 1986 and got hooked. In 1988 he showed up at Baker beach at Larry Harvey’s beach burn. In 1990 when the park police shut down the Baker beach “Man burns” Michael helped to convince Larry to bring the Man to the Black Rock Desert for the Cacophany Society...

Episode 26 the Season One Recap is out now. The inaugural season of the Shadow of The Man show is now over, next week Season 2 will launch with the Season Premiere EP 27 with none other than Danger Ranger! Learn about what happened behind the scenes in Season 1 and get a sneak peek at Season 2

This episode recounts the wobbly but promising beginning of this show and all of the startup problems the show faced. Over time these issues ...

Episode 25 with Caveat Magister is out now! Learn all about Burning Man’s philosopher laureate and his backstory. He first got involved in Regionals before moving to San Francisco where he first went to Black Rock City in 2006. From the beginning he volunteered with Media Mecca eventually becoming staff (which he did for 5 years, over time becoming their volunteer coordinator). In 2010-11 he started to write for the Burning Man Jou...

Episode 24 with Katy Tahja is out now! Katy first went to Black Rock City in 2012 following her daughter who had been going for 10 years. She thought it would be a one and done trip especially as she uses crutches and it was difficult for her to get around. She found Mobility Camp and got hooked, she has since returned year after year helping to organize the camp. Katy also writes articles about BRC for the Anderson Valley Advertis...

Episode 23 with Lisa Scheinkopf (AKA Sassy Cat) is out now!. She first went to Black Rock City from her home base in Arizona in 2011 where she caught the bug for burning. Later on she helped to run the themecamp “Cat World” and later another called “Ignited States”. She has been a part of the Arizona Burn (Seguaro Man, 4th weekend of April each year) since 2015. Lisa helped to organize “Ignite” in Phoenix in 2019 and became a Burni...

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 f...

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 start...

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 th...

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 R...

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 La...

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 ha...

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 che...

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 g...

In the mid to late 90's Yoms happened to see a piece of a strange video late at night of people in costumes on some odd bus in the desert before going to bed. It so transfixed him he had to wake up and watch all the way through the credits until he found what he was looking for. What is this Burning Man thing?

Yoms was working for the BBC and convinced them to send him to the playa for a fact finding reporting trip. This would ...

This February we are celebrating black voices from the playa and our first guest is none other than Chef Juke (aka Patrice Mackey). Chef grew up on the east coast before moving west to the Bay Area and later Oregon. He has trained in the culinary arts and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the oldies (music), you can see where his playa name comes from. His playa experience goes back to the mid 90's. Currently he is in leadershi...

Welcome to Episode 12 with Amy Bunker. After spending a couple of years being very Burning Man adjacent while living and studying in Northern California she finally made it out to BRC in 2001. Amy has worked and volunteered in many departments over the years. Her longest stint was as Regional Contact for New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine in the early 2000’s. She has been to many Regional events from Hawaii to Europe and has worked ...

Welcome to the first show of 2025 featuring Beth From the show Accuracy Third (https://accuracythird.com/). They are a podcast about Burning Man, or "an oral history of Black Rock City", and they first started their show about 9 years ago. It's a great show and I encourage you to check it out.

Learn about Beth and her journey to Black Rock City and how she volunteered, got involved, and met her co-hosts. Our...

in 2025 Playa Pete will mark his 30th consecutive trip to BRC (minus 2020 and 2021, but he did go to the renegade burns). Over the years he has been one of the main screen printing suppliers to BMP and more recently he has held the position of First Cabin Boy on the Monaco.

Pete spins quite a few amazing tales, follow his story from growing up in Vancouver, joining the Air Force, becoming a male model, and meeting Danger R...