MARISA: 

Leadership is not about making people happy. It’s about making sure that everybody’s equally unhappy.

STUART: 

Okay. That’s a quote. We might stick that at the front of the episode.

Hey, everybody. I am here with Marisa Winter of Thunderdome. Hi, Marisa.

MARISA: 

Hello.

STUART:

I’m not sure that we need to tell our listeners a lot about what Thunderdome is, because it’s one of those institutions that’s actually kind of more famous than Burning Man. But give us the numbers. I mean: How long has it been going on? How many people, how many days since the last injury? All that stuff.

MARISA: 

Does heartbreak count? 

We construct a 45 foot geodesic dome. We strap two people who know each other into bungee harnesses. We hand them padded foam weapons. We hold them back, and we let them wail on each other with about 300 people watching from the dome. We do about 50 fights a night, so yeah, it’s about a hundred people a night.

The first members of Death Guild, which is a nightclub in San Francisco that started in 1993, came to Burning Man in ‘97. In ‘98, they brought music for the first time. And in ‘99 we brought the dome up, for the first time. We have not missed a year. And the crew is about 50 core members with about 80 campers.

STUART: 

Well, I want to get into all of that logistical stuff and how you herd all those cats, because we’ve spoken before at Camp Symposia, and I know that you have a lot of experience and you’re thankfully willing to share it. We’re at a time of year right now where people are getting their camps together. I know we got some new people that are just kind of taking baby steps in the direction of a camp. So, I’m going to pick your brain about a lot of things related to running a camp, if that’s okay.

MARISA: 

Yeah.

STUART:

So, just a little bit more on camp history. I think everyone knows Thunderdome comes from the Mad Max universe, but tell me a little bit more about Death Guild.

MARISA: 

In terms of the community, we started out as a bunch of nightclub bouncers, myself included. We were coming out of the nightclub community. We all owned motorcycles because it was far cheaper than driving a car, and it really lends itself to that. 

I was there the first year, but I wasn’t part of the planning the first year, so I say I was there the first year of Thunderdome, but I was not a founding member. I wasn’t at all the meetings leading up to it.

But the ethos was that it was sort of built as a counterpoint to the other things that were happening at Burning Man, and we didn’t actually intend to… We never thought that other people would want to participate. We thought it was just going to be us… fighting. So that was interesting. And that happened our first year. We also learned not to call it Death Guild Bartertown, because it meant that people actually wanted to barter because they weren’t familiar with the Mad Max universe, so. Part of the evolution.

STUART: 

Okay, so when you say that you wanted to be a counterpoint, counterpoint to what? To raves? Or to what aspect of Burning Man culture?

MARISA: 

I mean, raves and hippies.

STUART: 

Okay!

MARISA:

You know, and kind of the anarchist roots of Burning Man definitely being honored there, for sure.

STUART: 

Yeah, I always… My back of my neck prickles up when people say ‘hippie thing.’ I mean, I guess it is in some ways, but when I came in, in the mid ‘90s, I was much more drawn to the punk aesthetic of that. That was back when we had all the Survival Research Labs veterans building crazy machines out there. There was a little bit of a, yeah, a little bit of an anarchist, I would even say nihilist, of a vibe. It was definitely not peace and love and hugs.

MARISA: 

One of the biggest compliments our camp has been paid is, uh, John Law has said, please make sure your camp knows that you are one of the few remaining things that represents our original intent.

STUART: 

Well, our original intent… That’s a big, big pronoun. But I hear him.

So let’s talk about the organizational structure, because over all that time, I’m sure you’ve had some changes. But… the leadership structure, let’s just start with that. Organizer roles. How do you decide who does what? Governance. How do you hold each other accountable and stay friends? It’s really the bottom line, right?

MARISA: 

Friends? Oh.

Original camp lead was David King. He was original inception. And he also started Death Guild, the nightclub in 2004. He needed a break. And I kind of…the joke runs that everybody else took a step back. But I definitely was, you know, young and stupid enough to take on this massive thing, and then, a couple of years later, he came back and then shared leadership for a bit, and then he stepped back out again.

And so been leading since 2004, but just me since 2012 or 2013 or something. And so I’m definitely trying to hand away leadership with both hands. So I don’t manage the fundraising anymore. I don’t rent the equipment anymore. You know, when I first stepped in, I was doing all of that myself. And I don’t want to be holding on to those things.

So we have very distinct leads. We have build leads. We have who’s doing certain things. So now a lot of our meetings are committee updates, which I really like. And I still, I don’t do the fundraising, but I still maintain the budget, and I still fill out the team camp application because I feel like those are the things, those are the final things that get handed off by TCO.

I’m responsible for our money and making sure we get there, and I also negotiate contracts when we do other events.

STUART: 

Okay, TCO by the way, folks: Team Camp Organizer. You have a leadership team that you’ve offloaded some of these things. You’ve offloaded primary fundraising. You’ve offloaded logistics. You have a build lead. Are there any other defined roles of people who think about this all year round?

MARISA: 

You know, we’re not as big a core crew as people tend to think we are. We’re about 50 core members, with camping coming up to 80, 85 people with guests and new sponsees and everything. But there are about 50 people in each meeting. 

I’m on the bank account with one other person, because I think it’s probably not wise to have me be the only one on the bank account. 

STUART: 

Boy, so many, so many camps have gotten into trouble that way with not having enough visibility into finances. That’s why I asked about that. It’s a really key thing. Yeah.

MARISA: 

Oh, our budget is public to any full member of camp. Every member of camp can see every dollar in, every dollar out. That’s constantly updated. Everybody knows everybody can look at the budget at any time; not our guests and not people who are still prospecting to be in camp. We have a one year probationary period for potential new members.

STUART: 

Let’s talk about that. How does someone join the Thunderdome community? What’s the onboarding process like? And how do you deal with friends of friends? Because I know that’s where a lot of camps hit the wall, right? “Who is that person?”

MARISA: 

Well, you asked how we all still remain friends. When I say ‘community’ and when I say ‘family’ is specifically in reference to Thunderdome, is that, this is a longstanding community. We have all fought with each other, loved each other, been furious with each other, watched each other grow. There has to be a lot of space for that in an environment like this.

We talk about theme camps where they have 60% new members each year or some crazy number, and we run a very tight ship. Simply, logistically, physically, it’s a dangerous thing that we do, and it takes about 25 people at any given time to run the dome. We couldn’t do what we do with 40% new membership. It wouldn’t function.

To become a member of Thunderdome, you must know a member of Thunderdome. To know a member of Thunderdome, that comes through many different ways. Oftentimes, if somebody wants to join us, we say we shouldn’t be your first Burning Man experience. 

We’re open for five nights. We require that you work four of them. You’re in camp from 8 p.m. minimum at our meeting time, to about 1 a.m. You don’t get to see the event, so you have to know that this is how you want to spend your entire event. And it’s really not for a lot of people. So we suggest you come and work. If you fit in, we teach you how to do puller training or harnessing, or one of the jobs in the dome where we can always use hands, but they require training, so, you come in and somebody sponsors you. 

Oftentimes you’ll have a friend come in and they’ll be sponsored or somebody will sponsor in their romantic partner. There are other options. You can also bring in a guest. And guests, they have neither privileges nor requirements, right? So you don’t get to buy a Thunderdome merch t-shirt if you’re a guest. Those designs are exclusively for our crew. Our Skully, designed by our art director Sid Nicholson, it is a skull with goggles on it and crossed wrenches that are 9/16, which is what we used to put up the dome. And there’s a ton of detail in this piece.

So you can come in in one of those two ways. You can be a sponsee, and that means you have a probationary year. You must attend one sleepover event, you must be camped in camp. And we do not provide a kitchen. We do not provide power. We do not provide showers. You have to really want to camp with us because there’s no time with the number of people that we have. We don’t have spare cycles for somebody to run a kitchen. We’ve tried to do it. It is a disaster because everybody’s working, everybody’s doing manual labor for three hours a night. Nobody also is going to be like, “Yes, let’s run a kitchen!”

STUART: 

Right.

MARISA: 

So we are a tough place to be. We do provide porta potties, and that was in large part because people took too much time. If they had to go to the bathroom while the dome was running, they had to walk all the way down to C to get the first public porta. That was unacceptable. So now we have portas, you know. 

So sponsees are expected to work exactly as much as a member. You work four nights of the event, at a minimum. Most people want to be in the dome even on their off night because it’s super fun. And then after a year, we put it up publicly, you know, “If you have a complaint about this person, let their sponsor know.” And this is my favorite part of it because I deal with all interpersonal stuff. So my role has become much more counselor, ambassador, advisor, which I love, and which feels appropriate. And there’s one other person in camp who definitely is the ambassador role, and that’s Nathan Cox. He’s been with us for decades, and he’s lovely. But getting to do a lot of that type of work. 

So, if you have a problem with somebody’s sponsee, you don’t come to me. You go to their sponsor and you say, “Hey, this person acted out in a wrong way or right way.” And then if there are enough complaints, somebody either gets told ‘no thank you’ or they get put on another probationary year.

My favorite are the guests-to-sponsee conversions, which are people who come in as guests and they’re like, “Oh, I’m not really interested. But, you know, my friend is camped with you, so I want to camp with you. And I get to be close to the action.” You know, you can be in the dome as a guest. You have to wear black. And no blinky lights. There’s a strict “No Blinky Light” rule for being in the dome and as a member of camp.

STUART: 

Thank you for that.

MARISA: 

I mean, we gotta have some standards, right‽

STUART: 

Thank you!

MARISA: 

So. Yeah, but, my favorite is at the end of the event, or oftentimes in the middle of an event, a guest will say, “Oh, no, this is the best, the best place I’ve been! Can I be a sponsee?” And then you have to find somebody to sponsor you. 

We’re always really cautious about romantic partners sponsoring romantic partners into camp, because once you’re in camp and you break up, that person’s in camp forever.

STUART: 

It could be aaaawkward. Yeah.

MARISA: 

Right. Oh, no. It’s awkward. And I’ve been asked… I always say, unless there’s a case of abuse, I can’t kick out a camp member because you broke up. So you two have to work it out. So be sure when you’re sponsoring somebody that you’re involved with.

STUART:

Okay.

MARISA: 

I’ve sponsored three family members: my dad, my brother and my sister.

STUART: 

Whoa. Your dad. 

MARISA: 

He’s 83 now. His last year was 2019.

MARISA: 

He did security. It was awesome. He was full on… worked security every night, recognized people. And so his responsibility is to make sure that nobody who wasn’t part of Thunderdome made it up to the front of the line. 

My sister came in 2001 and 2004, back when I was working DPW, and then she teaches and she’s a single mom and she’s amazing. But Burning Man is not so much anymore. My brother is actually, contract staff. He’s goes by “Job Security” and he works for the org now.

STUART: 

Oh. What department?

MARISA: 

He’s the build lead for the ARTery. 

STUART:

Oh, OK.

But my favorite story: Marian was at a gathering at my house…

STUART: 

That would be Marian Goodell, the CEO of Burning Man Project.

MARISA: 

And she met him and she said, “Has he been to Burning Man?” And I said, “No.” And she said, “He desperately needs to go.” And I was like, “You’re correct!” And so whenever tickets went up that year, I get this nondescript letter in the mail that was a ticket for my brother, not me. It was like, “Get him to Burn!” It’s changed his life. He’s, as so many of us experiences, become… the various facets of himself have been realized, you know, and it’s lovely to see. And he’s my big brother, so he didn’t want me saying that, but I’m saying it. So there!

STUART: 

Okay. So let’s stay on logistics a little bit here. Your camp — you don’t camp in the dome. You have a separate camp, which sounds like it’s…

MARISA:

Can you imagine?!

STUART: 

It’s very bare bones, right? It’s just: Everybody camps. Everybody’s on their own. But you still probably have some assigned shifts, like for build and tear down, and leaving no trace, and all that stuff?

MARISA: 

Oh, our logistics… Arlo, whose playa name is Monochrome. He’s a Ranger. He does all the mapping for us. We have fuel storage. I mean, we’re very organized in those ways. He does all the layouts in, I think in CAD, he does our camp layouts. Of course, we have a long running document that is, you know…

• Arrival Wednesday, personal camp set up and acclimation, acclimatization 
• Thursday is unload the container, unload the truck 
• Friday morning, dome top build, and then just be ready for the crane that we’re definitely not supposed to get, 
• Friday evening or Saturday morning, depending on weather, depending on when a crane is available, because we know that we are subject to any other art, funded build. We are at the mercy of other significant builds. So, um: get the dome up.

We used to do it on scaffolding, but it takes about four days, and only four or five, however many people can fit on scaffolding decking at a time, get to be on the scaffolding.

STUART: 

Yeah, that’s just inherently kind of dangerous too. 

MARISA: 

Yeah. It wasn’t great. That’s what we did for the first two years. Then we used a scissor lift, which is way more dangerous. We lifted the dome with a scissor lift.

STUART: 

Oh, my. That sounds like overtaxing the equipment.

MARISA: 

It was terrifying. It was terrifying and a bad idea. 

So then Sunday, we do all the rest, you know, and as with so many builds, there’s a lot of ‘stand around and wait.’ Like, everybody’s going to go tighten the dome, or we need to lay out the dome struts. So we try to be good about having several crews working at a time. So we, you know, get our frontage together. We have a main tent that’s a 50 by 20 GP large, where we have our camp meetings and where we hole up during dust storms. That needs to get built. Our scaffolding for our frontage needs to get built. Perimeter fencing. All that kind of stuff. 

We have an amazing sound system we invested in, about a decade ago; still fantastic. And so that takes quite a while to set up. And we’ve got a DJ booth. Shade structure in front. We have a new one as of last year, and it’s phenomenal. We do love the front porch experience. I think a lot of people like to watch the world go by. So yeah, we have a bunch of builds that happen. They happen concurrently. 

I have a list that is in the Burning Man event that I create for our Google Calendar, and for our Facebook group, as well as printed out and taped to the side of the container so anybody can look at it at any time. And before I go to sleep every night, I put the next day’s schedule on a chalkboard that is in front of the porta potties. And our dome staffing person, our dome manager, Julie, puts all of the staffing for the next day on a whiteboard in the main tent where we have our meetings. So no matter what, you’re going to know what the schedule is for the next day. 

The Google forms are extreme. Figuring out, you know, who’s going to attend when they’re arriving, what builds they can be a part of, who’s going to lead those builds. 

Do you have a second for your build?

STUART:

And everyone’s got to deal with that. Yeah. And they’re constantly changing, right, because people’s travel plans get amended. And “Oh by the way, I won’t be there on Thursday. I’ll be there on Wednesday.”

MARISA: 

We had, I think, nine people get sick last year and leave before Sunday.

STUART: 

I got really sick last year.

MARISA: 

It wasn’t just Covid. There was a lot. It was brutal.

STUART: 

Here’s hoping for a healthy 2025!

MARISA: 

My project over the last couple of years, and I started to do this pre-pandemic, and then it was completely laid to waste… 2018, we really struggled because we didn’t have seconds for everything. So in 2019, I started implementing seconds for everything and got everybody trained up because we do two events back to back. We do Burning Man and Wasteland Weekend, and they’re three weeks apart on a good year.

So people are exhausted and we need to make sure we have seconds. And so people were starting to get their seconds trained up in that late September time frame at Wasteland of 2019. And then we lost so much of that institutional knowledge over the course of the pandemic. And so we’ve been re-bolstering it.

STUART: 

So Wasteland Weekend I’m sure a lot of people listening haven’t heard of that. That is not an official Burning Man event, but it’s very Burning Man adjacent, down in the Southern California desert. Tell me just a little bit more about that.

MARISA: 

Yeah, it is super fun. I don’t know if I’m allowed to call it cosplay, but it is a fully immersive Mad Max slash Fallout slash another thing I’m not super familiar with because I’m not in that realm. It’s about 4,000 people, and it’s fully immersive. There are some spaces that are not fully themed, but if you’re in the themed area, which we are, you have to be dressed in appropriate gear and you can’t do the ren faire thing where you say, “Oh, I’m a I’m a Klingon, and I came from a different time period.” They will boot you from that space for trying to be clever, because they want it to be a fully immersive experience. You can purchase… they do a buy, sell trade, you can buy food. And it’s a blast. 

People always ask which I prefer, and I say, you know, “Wasteland is my favorite because it’s all of the people that know…” When we start with ‘Two men enter, one man leaves,’ the entire audience is already screaming it before we are. And I can’t tell our people from the attendees because everybody looks immersed. 

But Burning Man is my favorite because it’s the juxtaposition. People experience a thing that they’re maybe not expecting, or they seek it out because it’s so different from the other things that tend to be happening in the desert.

I love them both for very different reasons.

STUART: 

Super. Tell me a little bit more about the roles inside the dome. It sounds like there are a lot of moving parts to that. 

MARISA: 

Mhm. We have front-of-line, back-of-line security. At the back-of-line they’re going to check you’re wearing underwear and that you’re not too high.

STUART: 

Wait a minute. It’s a two item checklist. What are those items again?

MARISA: 

Wear your underwear and don’t be high?

STUART: 

Thank you. I just want to make sure I got that. And front-of-line, as you said before, is checking to make sure that people aren’t line jumping, right?

MARISA: 

Front-of-line is to make sure you still have your underwear on. You’d be surprised! Also because a lot of people will drop their drugs. The line wait, it can be over an hour. People take their drugs and then they’ll be completely high by the time they get to front-of-line. So there’s a secondary check. And there’s a stop point there, because you can’t just have the line leading up into the dome because there’s only one point of entry, which the crew must also use to get in and out. My dad’s job was to staff just the crew entry and egress, which runs perpendicular to the participant line. 

So front-of-line, back-of-line, security. Officiant. DJ’s awesome. I mean, music is critical to the entire dome experience. We also built in a stage management position, cueing the DJ for the performance, the actual pre-fight performances is important, so we do have now an actual stage manager role which is pretty great. 

In-dome security. Arlo is security lead and we always need a second. We prefer to have a dome gargoyle, somebody at the top because people climbing up in the rigging is super, super dangerous. The worst injuries that we have in the dome are people who think they’re better climbers than they are, who land on someone in the dome. This has happened several times. I’ve had a very significant injury with somebody landing on somebody in the dome, which is why… um… broke their back. A participant broke the back of a member of DPW. 

These are the things that keep me up at night. These are the things that are terrifying to me.

We don’t allow strangers to fight each other. You have to bring your own partner. We won’t set you up with somebody. I’m much less worried about that than I’m worried about somebody watching who has something like that happen. So security is critical. 

We have officiants, the people who decide who wins a battle and also tell the pullers when to pull their fighter back. 

So the pullers, there are two pullers on each side. You pull your fighter back. 

Harnesses and de-harnessers. It’s an awful job, and those people are phenomenal who do it. 

Weapons people, people who hand weapons, build up the show a little bit, make sure it’s interesting. 

And then dome management and that is the runner for staffing, seeing who’s getting tired, calling a fight if it gets dangerous; kind of the holistic awareness of everything that’s going on in the dome. 

And, we do have medics. We are an assigned medic space. We’re staffed by Burning Man with Burning Man medics.

STUART: 

Okay, that was… I really want to know about that. You have an EMT basically on duty when the fights are going on for an interactive experience of – what is it? “genteel violence.”

MARISA: 

Consensual violence.

STUART: 

Consensual violence. That sounds like a really good idea, Marisa. And still people get hurt. But you said the fall danger is probably overall more of an issue than people poking each other’s eyes out.

MARISA: 

We have had one confirmed testicle surgically removed after a fight, and we may have had our second one this year. First one was in 2004, my first year of management. 

STUART: 

Ouch. 

MARISA: 

That’s a whole other story. But you know, if you are wearing a climbing harness and you’re a person with extended bits and those bits get kicked and somebody tells you to go to the doctor right away, go to the doctor right away! Don’t go dancing and then have sex, and then go to the doctor and say, “Yeah, it felt funny.”

STUART: 

Got it… Uh…

MARISA: 

I wish you all could see Stuart’s face right now. I wish you all could see Stuart’s face, right!

STUART: 

Yes. Look up “CRINGE” and you’ll see my face.

MARISA: 

I always get asked what the worst injuries are. And to me, we’ve had a fractured xiphoid process which is that bone right below in your sternum. Cracked ribs are probably some of the most common; sprained fingers; broken noses. There’s a lot, there’s a lot that can go wrong, but… Yeah.

STUART: 

All right, you heard it here first. We’re not talking about Fight Club, people. We’re talking about Thunderdome. 

So, what’s up with THUMBerdome? That actually seems more like my style.

MARISA: 

We had… we had nothing to do with it. They just got placed near us and we were so happy!

STUART: 

This is a thumb wrestling miniature version of Thunderdome.

MARISA: 

The first one that was built for us was built in 2003 by DPW. And they showed up at one of those cafe tables with just a chicken wire THUMBerdome on top of it. And there were two bottles of black nail polish glued to the table, so you had to paint your thumb black before you went in.

But the one that they did this year was super robust. It was incredible. And they were maybe 75 feet from us. They were not far from us. It was adorable. We love them.

STUART: 

Yeah. There was a line outside of thumb – THUMBerdome.

MARISA: 

There was?

STUART: 

Yeah. For sure.

MARISA: 

Brilliant.

They’re like, “You know, the line for Thunderdome was too long, we’re gonna…”

STUART: 

So wow, you’ve been doing this for a while. I’m curious, what have you learned from your work here as a theme camp organizer that’s any influence on the rest of your life? Are there any exportable skills from this crazy, crazy job that you’ve taken out?

MARISA:

Oh, my god. Yes. 

I’ve been in the software industry for 22 years. I’ve been at the same company for 20 years. I’ve been a manager at that company. I have decided not to be a manager at that company. Everything is transportable. My book is going to be titled like “Everything I Need to Learn About Life I Learned From the Thunderdome.” That’s a fact.

The value of letting people make a non-permanent mistake is much higher than trying to tell people what you know is going to happen. People have to learn it for themselves.

If you put your community first, you can’t go wrong. I feel very strongly that, as I mentioned earlier, we didn’t come together because of Burning Man. We all knew each other before, and this community is so robust outside of Burning Man, we don’t rely on Burning Man to keep us together. Through the pandemic that was true. We do other events together. We spend holidays together, we travel together, we camp together. So putting community first is never the wrong answer.

Making the hard decision early will save so much grief later. When you have a poor player… Something that we’ve learned is when you remove somebody, after warnings of course — and we have a method by which we do this with a council – a smaller subset of varied, incredibly diverse opinions — you’ll attract amazing people when they see that you have kicked out poor players. You will not attract good people by saying you want good people. You will attract good people when they see you kicking out a racist, when they see you kicking out a transphobe, you will attract the right people. 

We had a researcher actually do their thesis on Thunderdome and how we’re managed, how our run, and one of the titles of one of their papers is Radical Exclusion. And it is on my LinkedIn profile and it says, you know, “We have been studied for how to get the right people into your organization, and if you’re a corporation, you’re not going to be able to legally follow it.” We are not beholden to the rules of a corporation. So if somebody says something really out of pocket, and makes people feel unsafe, we have the liberty to say, “You know what? This isn’t the place for you.” 

STUART: 

Yeah.

MARISA: 

As an example, if that comment happens to be “All lives matter and here’s why,” and you take time to try to educate them, and they don’t take the feedback, you can say, “You know what, you have some learning to do, but not at the expense of the marginalized members of this camp, and this community.”

I’ve had specifically, people of color and trans people say to me, “I sought Thunderdome out because of how I saw you handle these things.” And so what I’ve learned is… And it’s hard. I mean, I’m… Leadership is not about making people happy. It’s about making sure that everybody’s equally unhappy.

STUART: 

Okay. That’s a quote. We might stick that at the front of the episode. And I want to get that paper and stick that in the show notes. Vav, let’s make sure we pull that down. Radical Exclusion. 

Please go on. Anything else you want to share?

MARISA:

I don’t know what else there is! What else have I learned? Oh, God. Like… uh.

Leadership is an incredibly isolating experience, and nothing I say or do is without a magnifying glass and without a completely separate weight than were I not a leader in this community. So I can’t make off the cuff comments. I can’t complain about a shitty experience I had with somebody. 

STUART: 

Yeah.

MARISA: 

There are a couple of old school members of camp with whom I was friends before I was a leader, and I do have some trusted moments with them, but everything is weighted, and I’m always conscious of that, and it’s a rough spot. Things can be taken out of context and things are easily misconstrued, so there’s a stress to that. 

I recently was brought into a women theme camp organizers WhatsApp group, and that’s been pretty amazing and delightful; finding other people in that environment, and sometimes I’ll be next to a TCO with whom I’ll bond, and that’s always delightful. It can be a pretty good experience.

STUART: 

That’s amazing. 

Imagine that starry-eyed new theme camp organizer, someone just doing their first year, they’re second year. Any particular advice for him or her or they? What would you say to that person? Don’t scare them away, but… What advice would you give, Marisa?

MARISA: 

Oh, you can’t say “Give them advice” and then say “Don’t scare them away!” 

Build in your crying day so it matches your schedule!

STUART: 

Crying day. Check.

MARISA: 

Mine’s usually Wednesday midweek. I wish I were kidding. No. It’s exhausting, physically. Unless you’re doing anything remotely like this, you’re going to be physically exhausted. And it is not complicated work, but it’s hard work. And having that experience of never being off. As a leader, people feel very entitled to your time. If you try to set boundaries around it, you’re going to get called an asshole. 

So take your day. Legitimately I know mine is usually Wednesday because I’ve been there for a week. I’m exhausted. We’ve done the dome for two nights. I’m also a performer. I perform in the dome every night. I sing. And it’s hard to stay healthy. And I don’t let loose, I don’t party. I allow myself one drink, after I sing, and that’s it for me. I’m not checking out in any way at the event. And so I allow myself a chunk of time, usually an entire afternoon, to just not. Take yourself away from the environment. Take yourself away from the situation.

STUART: 

You leave camp, go somewhere else?

MARISA: 

Yep. If I’m feeling extra spicy, I will make sure I’m not wearing anything that says Thunderdome on it. Now that I have a blue mohawk, I’m a little bit more recognizable, it’s a little harder to hide, but, yeah, absolutely.

STUART: 

Just the idea of taking care of yourself, I think is pretty vital, uh, for everyone. I’ve had some of those Wednesdays, too. In fact, every year I have one of those Wednesdays, and I’m not really in that concentrated leadership position where I have to watch my words all the time.

STUART: 

I think that’s really, really solid advice for everyone. 

I would also add the acclimatization period.

MARISA:

Oh my God.

STUART: 

…particularly as we get older, making sure that you don’t dive too deep in when you first get there out of 4000 feet and 100 degrees.

MARISA: 

Every year! I’ve been doing this for… You know, this is going to be my 25th year in the desert. Every year I’m like “I can do all this stuff and then still be fine!” I’m like, “Why am I dizzy?” 

Every year it’s like I’m new. Give yourself a break. Give yourself a break.

STUART: 

Well thank you, Marisa.

My crew, the podcast team is going to, they’re going to kill me if I let you get off of this call without singing a little something for us.

MARISA:

Oh, damn it!

STUART: 

Could you?

MARISA:

No warning?

STUART: 

Could you take us out with a song?

MARISA: 

I didn’t warm up. Okay.

[OPERATIC SINGING]

STUART: 

Oh my God, thank you so much, Marisa. It’s just been a real pleasure having you on the program. And, we’ll have to get you back on here. Maybe next season when everybody’s gearing up to go to the desert again we’ll get some more tips and tricks from you. Thank you so much for your time.

MARISA: 

Thank you. It’s been delightful chatting with you. 

STUART:

Alright, Vav…

VAV: 

Michael Vav, here, the producer of Burning Man LIVE, the one true podcast of Burning Man Project, as part of our non-profit’s Philosophical Center.

MARISA: 

And no, I don’t remember your fight… unless you were the T-Rexes. That was pretty great. 

STUART:

T-Rexes? Wait a minute.

MARISA: 

The T-Rexes got, like, 5 million views. We love… Everybody’s like “What’s your favorite fight?” I’m like, “Be… Be them!” 

VAV: 

Thank you Diva Marisa Winter, and everyone who co-created Death Guild Thunderdome these past 25 years.

Thank you podcast team: Actiongirl, DJ Toil, kbot, Lotus Position, Martin, and Mockingbird (that’s Stuart)

Thank you (yes, you) for listening to this, sharing it with your friends (and enemies), reviewing it on your podcast platform, youtube. And thank you for sharing a dollar or two or ten at donate.burningman.org.

And, thanks, Larry. 

 

 

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