Intro theme: [00:00:00] Burners of Zealand, Australia, and Asia, radically making magic on the paddock

N Z,

Lumos: what do they call those things? They're not uh, what was that bug? That, um,

Stevan: the praying mantis. Praying mantis. '

Lumos: cause that's the key thing. It was the praying mantis.

Stevan: Alright, listeners. We've got Lumos here and he's gonna tell us about his storied history as the bug king, the modifier bug king. So lumos, let's get back to Modifyre in, what year was it?

2015, I think it was. We had to, something like that. The effigy. So tell us, how did you get the [00:01:00] name as the bug king?

Lumos: Uh, you can hold this. That is what happens when you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. You have friends and they grab hold of you and say, have I got a job for you? You are now the bug king.

Um, and the whole, the, the whole story of the event revolves around the bug kingdom and the bugs. Um, we have the royalists and we have the not so loyalists, um, who wish to overthrow the bug king and queen. And, um, it provides a, a fun opportunity. And, um, we had, we had a parade of our, of the strength of our army, and I was on a vehicle with the queen and we waved, waved to everybody.

And of course, the bug king in this situation has to be very, very careful because one of the problems we have is [00:02:00] they have this bug thing in modifier, and the particular bug they picked this year, that year was, uh, perhaps shall we say, hazardous for me, um, as the male in the partnership. Mm-hmm. Um, and I was, uh, mostly happily sitting there, quietly nodding to my queen and going with whatever she said, because I didn't want to have my head ripped off.

Um, so that, uh, that limited my choices somewhat. Um,

Stevan: and what happens in, so what happens. In nature. So with the praying mantis, give us a, a bit of a understanding of what happens in terms of the, the male and the female relationship.

Lumos: I haven't personally seen it myself, but I understand according to watching, watching and listening to the stories that uh, after the consummation of the relationship, [00:03:00] the female will decide to rip the head off the body of the male.

Um, and that's a part of the sex, right. And I wasn't really ready for that sort of, uh, ultimate commitment, shall we say. Um, so I was being a very good little king, sitting quietly nodding When I was, when I was told to nod and shaking my head when I was told to shake my head on the Saturday night, we culminated, no, it might actually, no, it would've been Saturday afternoon.

Well, maybe it was Friday night. I lose track of the nights. I do remember there was a party we were looking for a, uh, a suiter for my, for our beautiful daughter, um, who perhaps could be said to have a better beard than I do. Um, and as part of that party, uh, a number of suits came and presented their, um, their best options and showed us what they could offer.

So I got a lap dance from one. Um, and suddenly in the middle of all this confusion, the lights went out. [00:04:00] And when the lights came back on, our daughter had been kidnapped. Hm. Those not so loyal to our, uh, our monarchy had decided that they would remove our daughter and take her away, and it was a terrible thing.

Of course, of course. My, uh, the queen and I were very upset about losing our beloved daughter. And the Saturday then culminated in the fact there, there would be a battle between the two sides. And I must admit, I can't remember who won, but the ultimate, uh, answer was that at the end of the event, I went into hiding.

Um, because my position as the king was no longer secure from anybody. Um, so I ran overseas to, uh, to be the king, um, not in country, running away to protect his own south. And, um, yeah, I was, I was looking forward to the opportunity to one day come back and help [00:05:00] my people recover, um, and rebuild and get rid of those, uh, those people who decide to throw us outta the service.

Uh, yeah. Can do.

Stevan: So, describe to the listeners of, of what this, uh, event that you're talking about. It's, it's called Modifyre and it's, um, it's, it's a regional Burning Man event in southern eastern. Queensland somewhere. Somewhere in Queensland. Somewhere. Somewhere there, yeah. But um, it's been running since 2014, I believe, or maybe even earlier than that.

Lumos: Uh, yeah, it, it, uh, it's been running for a few years. It, you may, it may not have heard much about it because it, it did go into hibernation for a number of years there because of the standard situation, which is that, uh, many of the senior leadership team burnout move on or just get tired. And as part of the thing that make them different was that they decided that [00:06:00] the role playing, um, idea was cool.

And they would pick an idea. And that was this thing about the, the, they always have a bug problem, so modify the effigy each year with some kind of bug. And they play with, they, they seem to really, really love their bugs.

Stevan: They also have a cane toad problem as well.

Lumos: Well, that's why the code, the toads were brought in was to get rid of their bugs, um, of which it didn't do a very good job.

Mm-hmm. But, um, yeah, so they decided that one of the things that would make them different at the time with the leadership team was that people wouldn't get involved in this role playing type scenario. And so that made them the same, same, but different. Because there's no need for us to all try and copy that, that dirty, dusty thing in the desert.

And in fact, many of the regionals don't have a shitty desert hole. So instead of trying to copy the shitty desert hole that they don't have, they [00:07:00] make use of what they have and what excites them. And for many of these, the idea of doing some role playing and having some fun along a really sketchy basic storyline, and then we make it up as we go along was part of the fun.

And I, I quite enjoyed that. Um, I've never been a king before. Um, I must admit the, um, the power associated that was very limited because, uh, the queen made all the decisions. I was really just a, a figurehead. Um, and I wanted to keep my head quite literally.

Stevan: Do you have a favorite insect? A bug? I remembered.

So I've, I, I was there in 2019, I think Modifyre and the effigy that year was a beautiful beetle. Yeah. And previous was a dragonfly. So, uh, are bugs a pest or they're important to the natural ecosystem?

Lumos: Okay. Well,

Stevan: why do we need to burn it?

Lumos: Yeah. [00:08:00] Well, why do we need to burn any of our effigies? Uh, the reason we need to burn it is so we've got an excuse for a party.

Um, the, um, yeah. Perhaps they should be looking at, at, uh, getting rid of, so perhaps the, the next refugees should have been a cane toad. Mm. Hang on. They did a toad in Underland, uh, last year. Yes. That was the effigy was a toad, and it Eden had a mouth that opened and, um, it grabbed a, um, a bug mm-hmm. And ate the bug.

Mm-hmm. Um, so I think it's interesting some. Modifier they got, they, they've got hooked onto this bug idea. Uh, blazing Swan get hooked onto a swan idea. Mm-hmm. Um, at Kiwi Burn, we are very open-minded. We've had, um, URS, we've had strange men, we've had a woman, we've had Maori miston, legends, all sorts of strange things 'cause we're not quite so limiting to as to what we believe in.

Bit more open-minded, shall we say. But yeah, the whole [00:09:00] idea is we just want an excuse for a party, I think. And when you're looking for an excuse for a party, just about anything or do.

Stevan: And when did you return to the, um, Modifyre community? Was it this year at Simplify?

Lumos: Yeah, so this year, um, they decided that they would have an event and it, they called it simplifier because they were going to come back to life, but a bit simpler level.

And by changing the name, they were making everybody aware that perhaps expectations people had about the size of the event that used to be modifier, um, or modifier as the, um, as many of the attendees at that year, um, will testify to. So to make it very obvious that it wasn't, um, to be quite as big an event, they'd started to call it simplifier.

And I thought that was a cool idea. As soon as I became aware that the event was happening, I was like, yep, check my [00:10:00] diary. Yep, okay. I've got that. Free tickets came up. Bought my ticket and within about 24 hours of that, I got a message from my dear friend CC, who's involved in the organizing, and she's like, uh, would you like to be on site?

The ranger lead? To, which of course I had to say yes. Um, 'cause that's what Lumos do.

Stevan: Yeah. It's always good to come back home. Did you meet a lot of new burners?

Lumos: Uh, yes. It was quite surprising, um, how many new burners there were. The sampling, my sampling of the paddock. So when I'm wandering around talking to people, um, I'm often asking them, have you done this?

Have you done this before? Is this your first rodeo? And my staling said that there was maybe even 50% new blood. But having said that, all the people I talked to were really enjoying themselves. Um, I was helping out with the Moop crew, so at the end of the event. Uh, you [00:11:00] have to ask for the, uh, what do they call 'em?

Um, I've forgotten the name of the, the team. Um, and they will come and they check your site to make sure your site is spotless and earth. Guardians, that's the word earth guardians. Earth guardians is the word I'm looking for. Earth Guardians will come and they will check your site, and if you have passed their inspection, you get a beautiful, uh, handmade necklace, which was a seed that CC had found and drilled holes, and I helped paint for her.

Um, and you are not allowed to exit the site without that, uh, necklace. So a nice, simple way of checking to make sure no, you can't leave if you haven't been checked, your site hasn't been checked. And, um. Again, it was really, really enjoyable. But they, as part of their exit policy are asking people, have you done this before?

And again, [00:12:00] they were finding large numbers of people who had never done it before. Which is good because it shows we have potential for growth. Personally. If it's always the same old, same old people coming back, then it's not a good sign. We need returning people, but we always need fresh blood. Um, sometimes people can't return because of life, the universe and everything else getting in their way.

And that's fine. Um, in my case, it's a couple of years since I've been to modifier. Um, but I most, I enjoyed myself and it's like, yep. When they tell me when next year's one, uh, will gimme the dates, I'll be looking at my diary, seeing if I can fit it in, because it was lots of fun. And for me, I'm now retired.

So fun is the important thing in my life.

Stevan: Yeah. It looks like, it looks like it's gotta happen again next year because of the, uh, feedback and the um. The results of, of simplifier. I think that, uh, it really ignited and also mobilized some of the burners in, in Queensland [00:13:00] to get back into the scene in, into the community.

Um, that period off they had is also a good time to recollaborate and, and also to strengthen the community away from just the main event. So I think they were also doing lots of catchups, lot of meetups and just regular gatherings. Yeah. And I find that the, um, the burners in Brisbane, in Queensland, uh, a different bunch.

It's a sunshine state, so I guess a more vibrant and, and really energetic bunch. Yeah.

Lumos: Sounds like you are, uh, encouraging, uh, competition there, a bit of competition between the states. Is that what you're encouraging there, Steve?

Stevan: But we're now here at third degree and this is also your first one, Lumos, how you join the site.

Lumos: So this is my first third degree. Yep. It's a lovely site. [00:14:00] Some of the events we go to, some of the sites we use, perhaps, you know, three or four, five or six flat paddocks here we have quite the opposite to that. Um, so we are literally almost in the middle of town. There is town around us. Course you can hear traffic.

You can hear traffic. And for some people home is, it's so close that they could go home for lunch and still be back in time for that workshop. It's a campground that's used by the scouts, so there are. Basic facilities. We have toilets, we have showers, we have halls, we have kitchens, and we have, uh, eight enclaves or clearings, which you can set up camping.

And one of the cool things about that is that in each of those clearings, if you wish to, they can develop their own character. And I've seen that occasionally in the past. So instead of just having a big empty, uh, hole, [00:15:00] which is where you park cars and set up tents, you can, you've got a space which is irregular shaped, and you can set your tents up there and we can decide that if we wish to, we can make this the.

Viking enclave perhaps. Um, or the hippie enclave or whatever, and we can decorate that enclave if you wish to. There are plenty of trees to carefully tie a rope to, to hang some decorations from. So you can decorate, you can set a scene and you can make it what you want or you can do nothing. But it makes it easier to do that side of things, which I think is quite cool.

It's a little bit spread out within. Have a, a little bit of a walk. And then there's a RV camping area because there's the main camping area we don't want vehicles on because we wanna make the most of what we got. And oh, and number one feature, we have a, that I talked to the caretaker, they'd gone to a lot of trouble to arrange it.

So the sun [00:16:00] sets actually, uh, there's a stream that comes down, goes across the rocks, and drops into a waterfall. And at the end of that, when the sun sets, it's perfectly in line. And that can of been easy to do, to arrange it to the sun would set beautifully in line with the stream and the waterfall. And I think that makes it very beautiful.

So of course, it's sort of place where last night, uh, there was, uh, a sunset gathering. Um, I went over and joined them. They were doing, um, champagne at sunset. And, um, I will put in a slight complaint there for us non-alcoholic, there was no non-alcoholic choice. Um, we will work on that with them, but it was really, really nice to have a sunset setting for that.

In some ways, a bit like, um, uh, blazing Swan, we sit on the rock and we watch the sun go down here. We were sitting on the edge of this little stream or in the stream, and there's the waterfall, and then there's a beautiful sunset. So sunsets [00:17:00] are quite a beautiful thing. And of course, most of our participants are awake by sunset, whereas a lot of them miss their sunrise because they're either in their bed or they're still on the dance floor and they miss the sun sunrise.

So personally, I'm more a sunrise person rather than a, uh, late night person. But that never stops me from, from working the graveyard shift as a ranger because. Being the ranger is something I enjoy doing and somebody's gotta do it. Keep an eye on you guys to make sure it's all safe and everybody's having fun.

Stevan: Yeah, the one thing I noticed is that, um, fires are not permitted. So we don't really have fire barrels, fire pits where people can, um, gather for chats or just to keep warm. But, um, it's the, the site is not too big. So there is a sense of, like Lumos was saying, with these small campgrounds and enclaves, these are little pockets of community that it [00:18:00] just, uh, where people will collaborate and coordinate that, that that space that they have into something that is unique always.

It's never the same. So there's always a, a mixture of, and diversity of, of burners there with new and old. Um, usually when you have a larger burn. There is some kind of a separation 'cause people don't know where to go, but here you've got most of the infrastructure and facilities already there, um, which helps a lot.

And it's just camping. This is what it is. This is a, a scouts camp. So besides the burns, they also have it for other events, other activities For the community. News, you can use it as, uh, 40th birthday party. Or,

Lumos: or weddings.

Stevan: Or weddings, yes. Or even if you have a, your own little. Festival idea that you wanna experiment with [00:19:00] and this is what this community is, this event is.

Lumos: Yeah, I think it's, IM important to realize that as the possibility, um, especially when you're at the smaller end of the size scale mm-hmm. That you can use an existing campground. Mm. Um, and that's what they did for simplifier. It was an existing campground, which means by using that we've already solved our problems of their, there may or may not be kitchen space.

There may or may not be a hall, but there are certainly some toilets already there. And then you wanted to add some portals, Portos, but you don't have to add a lot and you already will have some of your official paperwork already taken care of, because at the end of the day, we are just camping with friends.

Mm-hmm. So. We are dealing with the managers of the, uh, facility and saying, you know, instead of just saying there's me, me and my, my, my partner and my kids, um, it's just [00:20:00] me and a couple hundred friends and we will pay you X dollars. And, um, we will make use of facilities and it would be cool if we can have a fire of some kind in this case for where we here are here at third degree.

There is a standard fireplace set up that the scout Jews all the time, and we used that last night. We burnt the effigy there and then tonight the temple, which is currently located 200 meters away, will be picked up today and carried over and placed on the same burn scar and will be burnt on that same scar because we wanna minimize our impact on the environment.

So a lot of that stuff, if you are using an existing facility for smaller events, um, makes the organizing of the event a lot easier. It's exactly the same thing we do in New Zealand. Ragland Burn is held to the campground that limits us to 200 people because that is the capacity of the [00:21:00] campground and we do it.

So it's outside of their peak season, it's in their shoulder season. So they're happy to have us there and book out the whole campground 'cause that's good money for them. And so we can work with these kind of people and build something up. And as I understand it, many of the events in the states who use that kind of idea of existing campgrounds, yes they have a size limitation, 200, 300, 400, 500, whatever.

But that's actually not always a bad thing. Just because an event gets bigger, that doesn't mean it's better. At a smaller event, you have more chance of meeting the same people. You get, uh, a different, you can have a different vibe. And at the end of the, my personal feeling is at the end of the day, you cannot have too many events we are giving me, as a customer, I have the option of deciding which events I wish to go to.

Bearing in mind my, [00:22:00] my finances and budget is not unlimited. So I will pick and choose what I want to go to. And the rest of our participants have the same choice. They have so many dollars and they have so many days off work that they can take and they can choose how far do they wanna travel. And by giving them more choices, if they're going to things closer to home, then it's the less environmental impact because less, um, fuel burned, getting there.

And of course if you're spending less time getting there, you'll spend perhaps not taking as much time off work. And if it's only a two, three hour drive instead of a, you know, 8, 9, 10 hour drive to get to the event, um, you might be more inclined to go. And my place distance, distance isn't so important as what will I get when I get there?

What's the vibe? How much fun can we have? And tickets have to be, yes. Ticket prices have to be affordable because if we can't afford it, no we can't go. But [00:23:00] I can have fun. And, um, I have the patch that I collected from one of my dear friends from Dragon Burn that says, I'm just fucking camping with friends.

Stevan: Yes. What do you think some of the advantages are of having sites that already have all these amenities and facilities means, I guess, with crew volunteers that can spend less time in the planning, in the, in the building. What other. Advantages. You, you think that some of these self-contained sites already, some of the benefits?

Lumos: Well, definitely there's the less official paperwork. Mm. Um, insurance may or may not be required or maybe easier, um, because it's not out in the middle of nowhere. Sound consent issues may be not a problem because the, the venue may already have permission to have sound to reasonable levels, to reasonable hours.

There is less, there is less things [00:24:00] for, um, your crew to, to put up. A lot of these campgrounds, especially ones which are scouting type based things, we'll often have a hall. The hall means that if the weather turns to ship, you have a dry space and that's always useful. You also means you have, if it's really cold, we have a warm space at.

So we can, we could have our, and we have that here at third degree, one of the sound camps is set up in the hall and that rocks in the evening, um, and throughout the night. And some of the others are outside under tents. If it gets cold, then some of the more temperature sensitive will want to go indoors and that's fine, but it means there's less setup required for good things.

So yeah, I think it's certainly for an event nobody ever wants, well, no sane person starts [00:25:00] off saying, I wanna organize a 5,000 person event. You start off and say, I might wanna organize a 200 person event. So let's start from there. Let's, let's be sensible because once you start invol getting involved in organizing things, you realize how many.

How many people you need who have to be enthusiastic and have time to help you. The volunteer community in our burner community is limited in size and the those people who I would sometimes classify as silly enough to want to be one of the key people to make it happen. 'cause I'm one of those, I'm silly enough to make it happen.

Um, there is a limited number of those. They have a limited amount of energy they can put in. So then it's okay, how do we share rationale between events? Um, you can't, you can't do everything. Um, it's one of the things I've learned. You can't do everything, but you can [00:26:00] decide which ones you want to do and have fun doing them.

And what have we got? Oh, what have we got coming? Is that pancakes, popcorn. Oh, fairy flo. Oh, okay. No, I better not have any of that. Not my doctor would not approve way too much sugar hair. Yeah. Yeah. Let's give, let's give the kids some candy floss. They'll be fine.

Stevan: Do you also find that there is, um, the convenience of not bringing too much with, with the, with, um, the site that's provided, you know, drinking water's available, so it is a lot easier for, you don't have to bring your, you know, you don't have to bring, you don't have to be too much self.

Lumos: Yeah, the self-reliant question has always been an interesting one, and that's one of the things, for example, at Kiwi Burn a few years ago, they decided that self, self-reliance, yes, that's important, [00:27:00] but balanced reliance on many levels balanced against self-reliance is okay.

So instead of having to bring five, 500 liters of water for a theme camp or bringing up an empty cube, uh, thousand liter cube, and then paying for a truck to come in and fill up our cubes for each of the theme camps and for every participant to bring in their 20 liters of water. So the downside is 20 liters of waterways, at least 20 kilos, and that takes up space and weight in your car.

When you're coming down here. So Kiwi Burn made the decision a few years ago that they would spend the money and they would put in a proper water treatment plant and they would pay for the use, uh, of the water from the town supply. They were treated to make sure it was up standard and it's there for everybody to use, which means because we're not cutting all that extra weight and we can consider carpooling options much easier.

[00:28:00] And it's very easy to say, you know, yes, you have to be radical. Self-reliance is important, but it's like within reason because water is terribly expensive to ship around the place. So it's like, okay, well what can we do to be sensible and say, okay, from a environmental point of view, uh, I personally hate people who have got their 20 little plastic drink bottles full of water because it's an awful lot of plastic waste.

I, I'm one of those who would happily have the 20 little bottle, which I just keep filling up and filling up and filling up. But that does weigh 20 kilos. And when I had a theme camp, then we had to get a large container and we would, what would happen was all the theme camps would throw some money into the pool and we would hire a tanker to come down and fill up all of our containers so that the start of the event, we had plenty of water.

So every, anything you can do, look at it and you can say, quite often there say in the balance, there is two sides to the thing. It's like, yes, radical [00:29:00] self-reliance, but if we have water on tap, we are saving money and, and we're saving the, saving the planet. In many ways, and there's a few other festivals, ignition, which I'm involved with here in New Zealand, has also gone the same way.

They, they've done the yes, put the water supply on for everybody because, uh, that's part of the community thing and part of the environmental thing. So yeah, the more you look at those things, you say, okay, swings and roundabouts, what's the best option for us? And of course it's, uh, you don't have to do everything on day one.

You can start with people having to bring in the water and you can, if necessary, and you can later on decide you want to add to it. Or decide other that it's gonna wait a bit longer. So, yeah, it's, uh, it's always thinking about it, looking at it and going, we can't do everything on day one and deciding what's, this is my step one, this is my step two, which [00:30:00] may be a couple, a year or two later, and here's, here's some thoughts and possibilities for step three, which may be another three or four years later.

Because, uh, somebody once said, Rome isn't built in a day. The burn isn't built in a day, and it's not burned in a day either. It takes time to do these things, but that's fine, because if we are, if this event is evolving, then as the environment and the people just make their decisions, things can evolve, perhaps even in a slightly different direction to what the original thought was, because that's how evolution decides sometimes that this would be better than my, my ideas.

My ideas aren't always the best. Um, and evolution will decide that no, this creature, this creature is better if it doesn't have wings. At, in New Zealand, we had birds that don't fly because they didn't need to. So yeah, we don't have to go, well, the norm is a bird [00:31:00] has wings. That must fly because if the environment doesn't have a need for it, then we don't need to.

So we look at our, our situation and go, okay, what's the best thing we can do in our environment that works for us as burners? And, yeah, multiple mult for me, um, more than one burn available each year is good. Sometimes the burns will be canceled. We didn't have a ragland burn this year in New Zealand because the weather bomb came through.

And so it was canceled, lit quite literally at the last minute. And it was a good thing. It was because the weather bomb actually was pretty crap. It did a, a really good job, and we would've been setting up in the middle of this huge storm. And so it didn't happen, and it's like, okay, in next year, well, we'll be back.

We'll be hoping to go back. So as an alternative, I am coming over here to Australia and, and trying to notch up as many burns as I can. I can't do them all, but I can try, I can always save some for next year. [00:32:00]

Stevan: Yeah. Can we talk more about Ragland Burn? I'm not familiar with this. Um, is it a, a new burn? Is it a registered Burning man?

Official burn? Is it an emerging burn? A, a micro burn? What's the story behind Ragland Burn?

Lumos: Okay, so Ragland Burn for Memory has been seven years, and Ragland, for those who don't know, it's a small town on the West Coast, a couple of hours south of Auckland, and. It's, uh, and basically it started as a bit of a surf community.

Lots of alternative type people there as well. And in those kind of townships you often find a little bit of independence. And so they like to, they love to do their own thing and they have created quite a good recycling center there and you can pick up building, recycling materials. And so the culture in some of those small towns is really cool.

[00:33:00] So, um, there is a campground, um, out at. Just outta town. And some of the key people in, in Ragland who live in Ragland decided they wanted to have a burn and that they would have their own local burn. Now they could happily have sold 200 tickets to Aucklands who would come down and enjoy the party, but they decided, no, it wasn't just about selling tickets.

So what they said was that the burn is mostly about raglin people, and we will have tickets available for outside people who are coming to, to do things. So as an artist, um, and as the fire safety guy, I got access to a ticket each year. And for me that was, it was an enjoyable thing. It was a couple hours drive, but it was a cool little burn and.

Are all Raglin burners, also kiwi burners, [00:34:00] right? Steve interrupted me 'cause we were getting to that. So what actually happened was that Raglin burn. Grew the local base of burners and eventually about three, uh, possibly three years ago, um, I lose track of the date sometimes. About three years ago, they got strong enough that they actually went to Kiwi Burn as a theme camp and they were Camp Ragland.

Oh, right. So to me that was a really important thing that we had a small sub, we'll call it a sub-regional now, it's not an official burn. No. And you know, I'm a Burning man regional contact, but not all burns need to be al regional burns in my personal feeling. Um, it's more important that they, they get the 10 principles, they're creating the same kind of vibe.

Those are the important things to me. Yes. There's the financial transparency. [00:35:00] Yep. And there's a, and there's a community behind that, not just an event. Yeah, definitely In these cases there is a community and they're not just there at the fricking party. Um, the party is an excuse for them to come together and excuses are good.

It's a celebration. Yeah. But it's a celebration. So it's bringing community together. And they got, the community came together so strongly that they then took Camp Ragland to Kiwi Burn, which was, uh, four, five hour, probably a five hour drive for them to get from Ragland down to the Kiwi burn site. Um, but they took it, they took infrastructure, they set up a lovely theme camp, and they ran a pile of events and it was a really cool thing.

Stevan: How big was the contingent?

How big was the contingent at, at that burn ?

Lumos: I have no idea. And my friend Jasmine would know, but um, yeah,

Stevan: a solid crew.

Lumos: It was a good solid crew and nice camp, nice set up. And to me that is the, the kind [00:36:00] of magic that I really love seeing. Um, that we encourage. So we have, you know, my personal attitudes Burning Man is in Mar Reno is the big thing, you know, black Rock City, and then Kiwi Burn is the New Zealand regional.

And then we have these sub regionals, um, which can happen. Of course. You know, people always, people always asking, why don't we have a burn close to Auckland? There's five reasons. Location, location, location, location, location. Uh, finding a good location is always a problem. And those people who are saying, but we should have a, it's like, well, you find me a good location and you know, we then we have to go looking for those idiot.

I mean, those people, they're not idiots. They're just hardworking people who want to put their, put their efforts into making this thing happen. Because strangely enough, it takes a lot of energy, especially in the first few years. Ah, and you also often have to find somebody who wants to front up with some money because you start off with a bank account of zero.[00:37:00]

Ah, and you need to pay for things. Um, so sometimes you're caught in the, the situation there where, okay, well we really wanna do this thing, but I gotta sell tickets to get some money. And some cases, the ticketing, if you're going through some of the ticketing companies, they actually will only re release funds back to you until really close to the event or only a portion of it.

So I'm trying to organize this thing. I need the money, I sell the tickets, but even then, I can't necessarily get my hand on the money to pay for deposits for this, for that, and for everything else. And of course, I'm hoping that A, I can sell enough tickets to cover my costs, and b, the weather doesn't destroy the event and see that people come, come to the event and have a good time.

Ah, we won't talk about the fact that the, um, key leadership crew during the event and probably get, get burnt out, and at the end, by the end of the event or even before the end, they're saying, why was I stupid enough to wanna do this? [00:38:00] So, yeah, it's, uh, it's fun and it takes a lot of work to make a thing happen.

And if you're make, you are one of those people silly enough to be involved in making it happen. You only do it for so long and then you start running outta spoons. Sometimes family gets in the way, sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes you end up changing towns for other outside personal reasons, which means you may no longer be able to do it.

But on the other hand, we're always looking for fresh blood, um, to sacrifice to the, to the gods of making it happen. Yeah. So Ragland Burn, that's an annual event? Yeah. Uh, happens in about March each year. Mm-hmm. So with, they've, their peak season of summer is over. Um, so they're now in the shoulder. 'cause the weather's us usually not too crap.

Mm-hmm. And so we can. Go to, uh, a camp like that and say, you know, we wanna pay for 200, we're paying for 200 people to [00:39:00] be here. If you wanna stick around before or after, that's fine, you just pay the camp directly. But other than that, we are charging people some because we've negotiated a deal with the camp for 200 people to be there.

And that has cabins, it has kitchens, um, it has showers, it has toilets, all those kind of things. So those are all a pile of things that you as an organizer don't have to worry about. You may find you want to get a couple of porta potties in because you, where you, you are doing your parking or your camping or your party, um, isn't necessarily where you've got your existing toilet systems.

And of course, nobody wants to, um, overload the sewage system 'cause it's not a nice thing when there's no room in the porta potty or there's no room in the toilets to do your thing. So. It can, it's, it's a really good burn. Nice little, nice little vibe. There's a little, a little creek that runs through the site.

Uh, we've got space. We have, um, [00:40:00] Saturday night, the party night we burn an effigy. It's, uh, footprint is about a pallet size we have, because that's the size of the, uh, little burn area we have. We have this a small campfire space and that's what we burn the effigy on The, um, caretakers of the camp join us at the fire.

The first couple of years he was a little bit nervous about us, um, and our behavior, but we've managed to get him to understand that a, I'm always sober. I'm the fire safety guy, and that b we do care. We are not just a bunch of crazy idiots who wanna get wasted and burn shit. We are responsible burners who want to get yes and burn shit.

So awesome little event, but no, they, uh, they have no problem selling their 200 tickets. And it's that story that yes, if you are getting involved, if you're an artist and they want you to bring your art, you can do it. [00:41:00] Um, and if you're just, shall we say more on the, I don't like the word punter, but we have to use that sometimes if you're more of an ordinary punter and you're not a local, it would be harder for you to get a ticket.

Mm. So the more you put it, Hey, strange idea here. The more you put in, the more you get out. Mm-hmm. Um, and um, I was talking to a friend of mine recently who's involved in, um, retention of volunteers. How do you retain volunteers? We had this conversation and, and she was like, well, you can't pay them. Okay.

You can remind them that they are cared for. They are loved. You can make their environment safe and warm and as pleasant as possible. You can offer them cookies, you can offer them coffee, and you can offer them hugs, and you can offer them swag. So schwag, for those who don't know, that's the, the [00:42:00] patches, the pins, the stickers, Steve oyster stickers that you might get.

Uh, for the event participant here at third degree, they've actually, they bought themselves or somebody got hold of one of those badge making gizmos and they're printed a whole pile of lovely color badges, uh, for each of the, the teams. So I got one of their badges because I'm part of the sanitation team.

Uh, toilet cleaning, I got one because I'm an artist. I brought an art piece. I got one because I'm a ranger, so I got a ranger one, and they also made some for each of the theme camps. So if you're part of a theme camp. You'd get a theme. Camp one. Um, I got one for fire because I'm, I'm one of the fire leads.

So there is a whole pile of swag available as a, as somebody who's involved with these things, if you're not giving your, your key people, your hardworking volunteers, some kind of [00:43:00] swag, why not? Mm. Um, yes, it costs you money, but the reality is it's a cheap way of rewarding these people. Mm. You've got, you've got to make these people want to come back as volunteers.

Strangely enough, volunteers are a limited resource. Senior volunteers are even more limited. You can never find enough in ranges, just

Stevan: come back, but also come back with friends.

More people.

Lumos: Yeah. Yeah. Although, you know, if you've got volunteer, if you've got a capacity, if you've got a capacity, then we've, we've got capacity for however many hundred here, but yes.

Volunteering, as soon as you volunteer, you become part of that, that family. Mm. So I'm one of the senior rangers here. I've just done two nights as the lead, um, during the, the late night, early morning shift. And I had last night over the, the, the Saturday night from 10, from 11 till two in the morning, um, I had three rangers on [00:44:00] and, um, who'd never, never, well, they'd actually, they'd never been to a burn before.

Mm-hmm. And they'd never arranged before. Yes. And the first burn, they jumped straight into Rangering. And I'm like, and then they, they jumped straight into accepting one of the less desirable shifts, which is the Saturday night party. And I made sure that I thanked them very much for that, because that is really awesome.

They jumped in there. And they're doing their bit to make this event happen. 'cause yes, things do strange enough, strange things and things that probably shouldn't happen do happen on a Saturday night, Sunday morning. And Rangers try to be there to help people resolve the problem and help so that people don't get hurt and that we can continue.

Nobody wants to up and cause a problem so that we are never allowed back to this lovely campsite. Is there also a temple burn at Raglin? So, at Raglin we only [00:45:00] have the one burn on Saturday, and sometimes the thing that we create is a bit of a combo. Um, so our first, our first year after COVID, they actually, the burn was of a COVID.

It's not. Yeah. Yeah.

Stevan: Oh, the, the coronavirus, the actual,

Lumos: yeah. They, they actually created a coronavirus, um, which was, um, about, um, just over a meter cube. Yes. And that was what we burned. And another year, one of our dear artist friends, Joe created a, um, oh, I've forgotten the name of the bird now. Um, but it's a popular bird in new, we see a lot of, in New Zealand fan tail.

That was the one I forgotten. His, uh, it's it's name, but the fan tale. And one of the, the myths and stories about the Fanta is that it is a messenger bird between this realm and the spirit realm. [00:46:00] Um, and there was room on the tail or on the, on, even on the rest of the bird actually, to write messages on.

So it was a combo thing because we just had the one burn. Um. So it's like, yeah, the, again, there is, there is no real rule that says you must have an effigy and you must have a temple and you, for, so we actually, we even have burns where we don't have burns and that's another whole, whole issue. It's hard to replace that, that crazy excitement of the Saturday night, the party and the effigy burn.

Um, but if in this situ, if you get caught in a situation where, you know, before you start that we are never gonna ever be able to have a burn here because the only way we'll do it is by having it in midwinter and nobody wants to do it in midwinter. So if we do it in a summer period, which might be the nice period to do a, an event there, then we're not gonna be able to burn.

[00:47:00] And then we get caught into a thing of what do we do to replace the burning of the, the effigy and what do we do to replace the burning of the temple? Um, and that gives it interesting challenges. At a ignition festival last time we replaced the temple burn with on the Sunday night at Bring Your Scraps.

And we had a community cook up, which was really nice. So one of the, one of the big theme camps said, we will have the, we will be the kitchen. Bring whatever leftover food you've got, bring your, bring your cutlery and we'll have this massive potluck cook up of everything else and the community will all come together, cook it and eat it.

And I thought that was a really good idea. I really enjoyed it. And that it gave us an excuse to come together Yes. And eat as community. So it was different to, yes, we are not, we are not expressing ourselves in a message to [00:48:00] send to the heavens because my, my cat died. Instead, we are coming together as a community and trying to build and bond that community.

So same, same, but different. Hmm. And then to replace the effigy excitement, we created some other excitement. So the last Ignition Festival, we decided to play games with the concept of money, um, and consumerism. And so they created a fake currency, uh, the bok, and we had horrendous inflation. The first day, the 50 B note was the big one.

The next, by the next day, it was about a 500 bok note, and by the next day it was about a 5,000 Bach note, and then a 50,000 Bach note and a 500,000 Bach note.

Stevan: That's not just inflation. Super inflation. It was super hyperinflation.

Lumos: It was hyperinflation, which meant that whatever money you had was every night, it was worthless, so you might as well spend it.

We had a shopping mall, [00:49:00] and at the shopping mall, there was, for example, quite often operating a hairdresser. Now they were a legit hairdresser and you could get a haircut. You just paid them in Bach, which was completely worthless. There was a bank. I was caught robbing the bank several times because I could.

Because you have some fun. Yeah. At one point on the seven. What was it? Sunday morning? Might have been Sunday morning. So the plan had been hatched on, on Saturday night over a few drinks. We had some, the site is long and thin. We had some left over temporary fencing and Sunday morning we erected a temporary fence from one side of the event to the other.

And we, we left a gate in the middle about a meter wide, and that was checkpoint Charlie and I manned that for a couple of hours and you could not get through unless you had paperwork. Mm-hmm. Um, and of course for some people they were camped where, and the toilets were on the other side of the fence. Or their friends were on the other side of the [00:50:00] fence.

If you had mo no money, of course I'd just let you throw. 'cause I wasn't worried if you did have money, you could pay me. But the, the really, really cool part was I had a number of people who went away and came back and showed me passports and work visas that they had created to get them to the other side of the fence.

Mm-hmm. And it's like, well this was never in the plans, but this is people thinking outside the square and coming up with art. And so in each case I was like, do you mind if I take a photo of this? I, this is fricking wonderful. So yeah, we are creating dynamic art and

Stevan: life, which imitates art.

Lumos: Yeah. And we're, we are imitating a situation that happened in Europe there and having lots of fun with it.

And after a couple of hours, um, I had other things come up, so I walked on. In the meantime, I had people jumping the fence and trying to get around things and like, yeah, that's cool. We weren't trying to enforce them. There were, there were no, um, [00:51:00] agents there with guns to shoot people. We were just having some fun.

And when we were ready a couple hours later, I walked away from it and I noticed that nobody else bothered to play the game and that's cool. But we had some fun for a couple of hours working with, um, art imitating life. So yeah.

Stevan: You mentioned Ignition and you also mentioned festival in combination.

Lumos: Everything's a Life is a festival. Yes. Okay. Ignition is an event. Yes. And it happens every couple of years. It actually was created originally to replace the Kiwi burn. That didn't happen in 2019. 19, yes. Yeah. In 2019 things went wrong and the event didn't, they knew a couple of months in advance that the event couldn't happen, so suddenly the community had had to say, whoa, let's do something.

Um, which they did. They created the ignition as an event, and our, uh, 2026 ignition is [00:52:00] coming back and it is Ignition High School, and they've gone to the organizers, gone to a lot of trouble to push the whole idea of high school life and instead of theme camps, we have subjects. And so instead of x, y, Z theme camp, this is where you go for your art.

Or this is languages or this is music or all of those things that, yeah, that happened in school in high school and that has lots of interesting possibilities. Um, we won't be rangers there, apparently. We are hall monitors, so we'll be having some fun with, uh, handing out possibly some get outta jail free cards.

But we will also be assigning people detention, um, and other things. If they're caught being caught being doing anything, we could assign them a detention. And it's this idea of, so this, the, the games that will evolve [00:53:00] from this is trying to replace that Saturday night party. 'cause on that, in that particular for, you know, a hundred miles all around, you're not allowed to do anything that looks like fire during summer.

Um, it's just too dangerous. So it's like, okay, we have to work. How can we encourage the community to come together and have some playful fun? And then if we can throw art in there and twist it around, we can, it can get interesting. So, um, yeah, ignition is happening next year and yes, it will mean that for some of us, I'm one of those who will, will do ignition and then a week and a half later we'll go to Kiwi Burn to partake of that level of fun.

Um, because I'm a poly aventus. Mm-hmm. I will, I will do lots of events, that's fine. That's my life. And some people will only have enough time or money to do one or the other. And so some people will choose. And so Kiwi Burn is already looking and saying, okay, well that will probably mean that our numbers will be down, because that's what happened last [00:54:00] time Ignition happened, that Kiwi burn numbers went down.

And that's fine because at the end of the day, as a participant, you are also a consumer. You get the choice of deciding, do I buy ticket A or do I buy ticket B or can I buy both? And for some people it's like, okay, well if I start saving as soon as I've left the last event, put a put a aside, you know, a couple of dollars dollar a day.

If I put a dollar a day into the bucket, by the time the event comes around, I should have enough money in the bucket to buy my ticket.

Stevan: So Lumos, you've been doing this for a long time. I want to hear your origin story. How did you get involved and how did you find out about the whole Burning Man concept?

And there was, uh, nothing in New Zealand, right? So how does it feel to be a kiwi burner amongst the whole global burning community representing Kiwi burn?

Lumos: Okay, so 2004 Kiwi Burn became a [00:55:00] thing in New Zealand because a couple of years before that, uh, Kiwi had been off wandering the desert of Nevada and ran across a couple of weirdos at a hot pool who were, um, natural hot springs and they were on their way to Burning Man.

And, um, so. Our Kiwi joined in and found out about this, this craziness. He was only there to explore the geology. Um, but he found out a lot about the people and what was possible. And he went to Burning Man in those early days and then he decided, this is a really cool idea. I would like to do this in New Zealand.

Um, he then contacted Burning Man. At that stage. Burning Man had some regionals across the us. Not a lot of them, but they had some in the other parts. But nowhere else in the world was there an official regional burn. So, um, Kiwi Burn became the first original, or first non-American. Um, official regional, um, down there in New Zealand.

Uh, two, [00:56:00] that was 2004. We had the first event. It was linked in with another event at the same time down in the bottom of South Island in the part where the hippies saying all the time. So it's a whole, there's a whole pile of hippies there and a beautiful mountain. And it's like, cool. And they did that for five, 2004, 2005, 2006.

And at that point they decided if the event is gonna grow, it needs to move to the north island. 'cause there's only 12 people who live in the South Island. So all the rest of the New Zealanders live in the north island. Um, and they did some in the committee got formed and they did some investigations and they, they kind of went, okay, well Middleland North Island, that's a, sounds like a good place to start.

So, and the local TPO regional council were very cooperative. They actually gave us, um, a grant to. Organized the event, and the event was held at a venue which was, um, owned by the council. And so yes, we did pay them a token fee for the use of the event or the use of the land. [00:57:00] And it was land which had toilets on it.

And we had, and there was a, a manmade lake and little beach there. And so 2007, it was about a hundred people. I wasn't there yet. 2007 there was about a hundred people have this event there and they had a really cool time. And then it started growing from there. So one of my friends went to it in 2007, and I saw her later that year, um, at another event, which had nothing to do with a whole pile of crazy pagans.

And she said, you need to go to Kiwi Burn. And I'm like, okay, yeah, whatever. Um, and so I did. I went, went online, looked at the website and Oh, okay, interesting. We've got these principles and while I don't fit. All 10 of them. I do believe in a whole pile of them already. So it's like, okay. I personally at that stage didn't do radical self-expression, but I did a lot of the others.

So it's like, okay. Yeah. Okay. So, um, my, I took, I went along there. I, I had my, my son who was [00:58:00] about eight or nine or something at that time. Um, and so in 2008 we showed up at Kiwi Burns. So, uh, it was very small event. Um, less than 200 people I knew my son and a couple other people showed up that I knew, but other than that I didn't know.

And most of these were kids were in their twenties. Um,

Stevan: and you weren't lumos then yet?

Lumos: I was not. I was not yet Lumos. Mm. I was just Pete. Mm. Um, and we got our camp set up and about two hours later, some people came along and said, uh, we need somebody for greeters you on. And I was like, yeah, okay. So I put my hand up and I became a greeter about half an hour later.

And it was pretty, that was, that was fun Then. Um. It was like, yeah, I'm really getting into this idea that tonight we went on the, um, the Saturday, the Saturday night was, um, a burn to be a burn of the, this was an event. It started on the Friday, Saturday and then Sunday and then pack up and [00:59:00] go home. So actually it must have been, must have been the Sunday we did the, yeah.

In that case it was the Sunday that we did the effigy burn, um, and the temple burn. So there was a, there was, um, a wooden structure there of a man. He was all carefully arranged and he was sitting in a throne and on the day he stood up mm-hmm. From a drone and he raised his arms in the air and he got El wire all over him.

So he looked really cool at night and they, we didn't have much idea about safety in those days. Um, I was, as a fire spinner, I was on perimeter, so I was about five or six meters away from the, the thing. And for those who wanna, wanna see it light, wanna see the action. Um, it's available on YouTube. You go, you, you look up kiwi boom.

Mm okay. On YouTube. And you will see this, and you will see the explosion as they detonate this thing using fireworks [01:00:00] because they didn't tell us at the time, but there was an open petrol can in the bottom of the chair of this thing. So it created petrol vapors, which ignited and exploded, and bits of wood went flying past me.

One person got hit by the flying wood, but other than that, nobody was hurt. But we did get somewhat shaken up because that's why it's experimental, because it was a little bit dodgy. Um, since then we've learned about things like, uh, fire perimeters and lots of safety and shit like that. Um, and no fireworks and no petrol cans.

So, um, so yeah. But it was, um, as part of that as well, people were encouraged to do, to add something to the effigy. So a couple of people who were camped around me, we created an effigy. Somebody had a, a pair of overall, an old pair of overalls, and we stuffed it up with straw and what have you. And we made an effigy of one of the, um, US presidents of the time and we put 'em on the fire.

Mm-hmm. So, technically [01:01:00] I was an artist that year. There was also a documentary was made about the, about the whole adventure. Um, a couple of, uh, two Kiwis who had never been to a burn before, um, but had been involved in making documentaries, decided to make a documentary about going to QE Burn, and they document on that.

If you watch it when they started, they're not really sure what they're gonna get into. And then they go through these experiences and as part of it, they created the confessional booth where they had a camera running. Inside this little booth and you could go in there and you could record your thoughts at any time.

And a lot of those thoughts got added into the documentary and they were also filming during the day and during the night to keep adding to it. It took a few years to get it all finished once they had all the raw footage and they, they, they did a fundraising thing and I was one of those who threw them some money and said, when the DVD comes out, [01:02:00] 'cause it was DVDs back then, when the DVD comes out, not streaming, I've given you, I've given you some money and I'll get a copy of it.

Mm-hmm. It took a few years and eventually I got my copy, which is still in my treasured list. Um, but you can find it online now. Okay. Um, it's, um, yeah, we put a link into it. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, it was really interesting and, um, watching you, you literally, and, and of course most of these participants have maybe been to one burn or two burns.

And they're all young kids and they're talking about these experiences of, you know, this is a whole new game for them. Mm-hmm. Um, what do they expect to add to the fund? One of our, one of the participants, uh, hippie, he had a, um, incident with a, um, kidney stone. Mm. Turned out to be kidney stones or something.

So no appendix. Sorry? It was appendix. It was appendix. Yeah. So he, uh, our medic said, no, it's appendix. So he got, uh, he went to hospital and yep, they whipped his appendix out, um, and came back in and he came back and finished the event. We were very lucky. 2007, [01:03:00] the, um, committee got a, there was a private company who do medical, um, response, and they, they were paid to, to be the medics.

Those that, that team, that family, uh, are still our medics. When I saw them in 2008, they'd actually gone down the, the MASH mobile and they had their, um, quad bike dressed up as a mash vehicle, and they were. They didn't know it at the time, but they were burners. It took time for them to get, to admit to being completely indoctrinated into our cult.

But, um, last year, Paul, who's the, the head of the team was the designer and builder of the, of the temple. Mm-hmm. So, um, completely dragged them in. We've done the same to owners of the land. Mm. So, um, now we're in the situation where we're on a new property. The owners of the land, mark, um, [01:04:00] has been, he was brought up on the land.

He's about third generation or something, owning the land. And his family think the land is important and the farming is important. His wife, the Argentinian, she is Andrea, she's awesome. And they are Burnes. They have become one of us. Yes. Um, when they were in the first years, they used to camp with us in the forest.

And the only way you could notice anything was slightly dodgy was for some reason there was a tap right outside their tent. So they didn't have to walk far to get fresh water. Slightly dodgy, but almost nobody would've noticed that. Nowadays they're a bit older and they've got kids, so they don't camp in the forest with us, but they have some cabins in the forest that they camp in.

Um, but yeah, we've, we've brought them over to our side. They love the fact that we care for and respect the land and all the other principles, and they have now become one of us, which is good. And we've had, we've been, we've been doing that to a number of our, our contractors, uh, [01:05:00] because they realized that, you know, it's so, so much special.

So somewhere along that journey, somebody decided that, that Peter or Pete was too common. Mm-hmm. And somebody, somebody threw out the name Lumos, um, which has multiple, multiple parts to it. One is I have been heavily involved in solar power over the years and pushing the benefits of solar over shitty generators.

Two is I sometimes do what I'm doing now, which is, throw a few thoughts out there. For people to think about, but three, if it's a big fiery thing happening over there, either I'm doing it or I'm fire safety it and I'm always sober so they learn to trust it. Okay. There's a big fire over there, probably Loomis.

Oh yes. Lumos is over there. It'll be fine. He's got it under control and yeah, I'm very happy, very happy to accept that name because as far as I know, I dunno, any other Lum Moss? Um, you can find me at lumos@burningman.org. That is, I'm also official regional contact, so yeah, I have that name [01:06:00]

Stevan: for the whole New Zealand or just the

Lumos: Well New, see New Zealand.

New Zealand is New Zealand. We are one region. Yeah. You guys in Australia have got the advantage. You've got different states, therefore you have multiple for each state. Mm-hmm. Um, we just have New Zealand, we have two regional contacts in New Zealand and we were, were for a while, both based in Auckland.

Now I've moved a bit south, so I'm a couple hours out of Auckland. We are fighting with Burning Man. We'd like to have more regional contacts, but they finding the time for them to, uh, do the process and accept people and decide if they want to choose them. And everything else all takes time. And, uh, it's too hard.

But the, from my point of view, the important thing is our cousins here in Australia, we have very close working relationships with the regions in Australia and the events in Australia, because it's quite simple. If you're a New Zealander, you do have an Australian cousin, everybody does. Um, my mother was Australian, one of my sisters was born over [01:07:00] here.

Everybody has Australian friends. Um, either, sometimes we have to deny it. They are still our friends because in New Zealand, as you grow up, you, you live in, in Timbuktu and you live some little town. When you get the chance, you grow up, you go to Auckland, and then when you get the chance, you from Auckland, you go to Sydney or Melbourne, depending whether you're going for culture or money.

And then maybe you go somewhere else in the world. So it's that we are, we are a little brother, um, to Australia, even if we do beat them at, uh, at the footy and a few of the other games. Um, so they have to invent their own games so they can win it. But um, so ignoring that cultural thing and that sporting thing, we are all cousins.

Yeah. And we work, we're part of Anzacs, we're part of Anzac and we work well together and we have a lot of fun together. So we can share a lot of these things quite happily.

Stevan: Would you say the humor is similar as well?

Lumos: The humor is, is pretty similar. Yeah. You use certain word. There's a C word you guys use a lot, which we don't.

Oh, okay. Um, [01:08:00] yeah, that's the one. Um, same as when I'm hanging with my American, working with my American friends, they use an MF word, which is considered by many other people to be a bad word, um, because they just drop it all the time. So I find myself dropping into that. But, um, yeah, we can, we can get, culturally we are very similar, whereas the states, we've

Stevan: got a bogan humor, right?

It's a bogan humor.

Lumos: We've still got a bogans thing. Definitely happens, but we've got so much in common. Versus the other option is talking about what happens in Europe or what happens in the States, what happens in Europe or what happens in the States is wonderful, but it's not what happens down here in Asia Pacific.

Hey, that's why bonds are exists. Mm-hmm. Burners of no New Zealand and Australia. Mm-hmm. So New Zealand comes first because we're always beaten you, um, and Australia, and that's fine.

Stevan: You guys come first in terms of, um, receiving the daylight as well.

Lumos: We, of course we do first in the world. You wanna get a head start on the rest of the world, come to New Zealand, but, you know, we can happily [01:09:00] accept that your Australians come next.

Stevan: It's also fits well with the burn calendar as well.

You guys are the first one to, to, uh, the first burns. In in the burn calendar.

Lumos: Yeah. If you, if you wanna start your calendar in January, we are right at the beginning there. Mm. Yeah. Um, for us it's the middle of summer, but it's like, that was the date the dates were chosen that way because the last weekend of January is, uh, anniversary for the top half of the north island and a piece of the south island, which basically says that, um, a large portion of New Zealand is on holiday for the Monday.

Stevan: What public holiday is it?

Lumos: Uh, it's called Auckland Anniversary Day. And you know, Auckland, Auckland starts at the top of the north island, goes down to tpo, which is the middle of the North island. So we call that Auckland anniversary. So that's, um, yeah, that's most of New Zealand from a population point of view, that is most of New Zealanders.

There's a few people who live in Wellington and they have their own holiday the week before, but for all the rest of it, [01:10:00] the people, the participants, it's, no, let's take advantage of that day. So that works quite well. And um, you know, New Zealand is always first.

Stevan: Hmm. It's great that you had the burning culture, burning Man experience without going to Burning Man.

You had it directly in your own backyard.

Lumos: Yeah, actually there is, so there is a story about that. Yeah. So in 2010, yeah, 20 10, 29, uh, was one of the other thing. All the years I'm on the. The committee organizing the event, and we were told we've got two VIPs coming in from Burning Man. Treat them very nicely.

These are very important VIPs. That's cool. Um, so anyway, during the event I ran into this, uh, crazy American chick and I got chatting as I do and, and I met her friend a bit later on. Um, and that's cool. We got chatting about one thing another, [01:11:00] and then on the I Sunday morning we had a town hall meeting and at the town hall meeting, the VIPs were introduced to everybody.

Mm-hmm. And it happened to be these two American ladies I'd been talking to. I just thought they were ordinary people, so I just treated them like ordinary people. And, um, yeah. Um, they were awesome. Um, and one of them at the start at that time was, was Megs who used to run the, uh, regional contact. Uh, group within Burning Man.

Um, and at that stage, the rules for to becoming a regional contact was you had to have been to Burning Man. And at that, so a few months later, the um, we actually got permission in New Zealand to add another regional contact, so we'd have two of us, um, or something. So it was like, okay, cool. And, and I read it and said, okay, you know, and so somebody asked me, why don't you apply?

And I said, I can't apply because the rule says I have to have been to Burning Man. And anyway, eventually I got got a message back from, [01:12:00] from Megs as the regional burning man, uh, leader to say, uh, don't worry Lou Moss, you are come, we're gonna put you down on the list because we will change the rules to 'cause you got it.

You understand the burn. And since then there is another, a couple of other. Contacts that who are friends of mine, who have become regional contacts without having first gone to Burning Man, because the people understood that, yes, you've got it. You, um, you drank long and hard of the Kool-Aid for want of a better term because yeah.

So it was all part of the fun part of the journey. Um, now all those years later, I'm still enjoying being a regional contact, doing my bit to keep the, keep the conversations going, keep the communication happens, keep building friendships, because, um, down here in Asia Pacific, sometimes, sometimes they forget about us.

And that's fine because we've got our Australian brothers that [01:13:00] we can do these things with and we can build better, stronger, faster. You know, years ago we were talking about, about using solar energy at Kiwi Burn, you know. 15 years ago, and it took years for Burning Man to finally start talking about that kind of stuff.

We were talking about things like mobility and disabled people and accessibility, and down here in, in New Zealand and Australia, we are doing those sorts of things before they are in the us. Mm-hmm. Um, we can, and as far as the US concerned, as long as we fit within the principles and their other basic rules, we can do all these things and we can be mild ahead of them because we are ahead of them normally.

Mm. So let's just carry on doing what works for us, um, as an awesome community or or series of communities coming together and we are doing great things, and then the rest of the world will eventually catch us up.

Stevan: Hmm. So when you, when you're around and you meet burners from all over the world, [01:14:00] are you surprised that they're not, they're never heard of Kiwi Burn or, oh, we've got, we've got people from New Zealand who are burners.

Lumos: Uh, yeah, that is a, that is a standard thing. Um, for a while there in Kiwi burns early days, because kiwi burn is in summer period, we would often get American tourists coming over. They were burners. They'd been burning and burning man for years. They would come to New Zealand to burn and then do a holiday or do a holiday and then burn.

Um, and we always had a regular bunch, um, of those Americans coming in, having fun. And we have an. In the years since then, also noticed we get occasionally people who are like, oh, I've been to the New Zealanders. And they're like, I've been to Burning Man four times and now I know about Kiwi Burn. Um, I don't have to go so far.

Um, and that same sort of thing happens with Australia. Mm. Um, some people see that. They've seen it could, they've seen it on tv. [01:15:00] It was on the, it was on that episode of The Simpsons or whatever, burning Man the middle. Yeah. We, it was on Burning on the TV show. Yes. Google Burning Man. Okay, let's buy my tickets and let's go.

'cause according to the TV show, it looked really cool. Mm-hmm. Um, and that's fine. We have for quite a few years now, have had no problems selling enough tickets, so we don't need to advertise to sell tickets. What we always do have problems with, and still have problems with is enough volunteers doing the key stuff.

And, um, surprise, surprise, some people may, may not realize, but if you don't get enough volunteers showing up, we either. Have to reduce the size of the event or perhaps the event won't happen. 'cause you know that's life. You want it to happen. You gotta get in and make it happen. It is not put on just for you to sit back in your deck chair, uh, and sit there drinking beer, get jump, jump in.

But the [01:16:00] more you jump in, the more fun you realize you can have and you build strong connections and friendships with these, with these people. 'cause you're working with them in these teams. I've lost track of how many friends that I've accumulated because I'm working rangers or I'm working these other teams.

And if you are somebody who enjoys doing those kind of things, I mean rangers. What are rangers? Well, we are a bunch of people. We are participants. Yep. And we are the caring kind of ones. I like to think of us as the big brother, big sister you wish you had sometimes who can just keep an eye on you and occasionally say, uh, here are some possibilities that, that may not be the best way of doing it.

You may get hurt. I'm not gonna stop you unless it's really stupid. But I'm gonna be keeping an eye on things. And when the shit hits the fan, we are there to try and help things. Um, and if you haven't got somebody doing these kind of things, it can't happen. [01:17:00] So mostly we want these events to happen, so jump right in.

There was never too many volunteers. Uh, I went to Africa Burn in 28, might have been 2019. And their big thing at the, at the time was. If everybody can just do one shift. If everybody does one shift, we will run outta shifts to roster people onto. And of course that never happens. Um, so I did my, my seven or eight or nine shift, whatever it was.

Um, and that's fine 'cause that's what I do. Um, I'm not there for the shitty music. Mm-hmm. I'm there for a whole pile of other reasons. I really enjoy my time and I can have fun working with these people and learning from these people. And yeah, I've gone around the circle. I've forgotten where I started now.

And you back to Steve.

Stevan: Well, I was gonna ask you about the, um, some of the traditions of, um, of, uh, kiwi burn or ragland burn or ignition. Some of the things that you do [01:18:00] that's, that's, that's unique or different that you won't find anywhere else. I think you guys in New Zealand, one of the biggest tradition is the nitty run around effigy.

Yeah. It's something that it's, uh, you gotta, you gotta partake. If you want to.

Lumos: Yeah. Um, no, no. So yeah. Negatively fire run. Mm. Um, the first couple of years when I did it, I think it was the first two years, um, I left my clothes on. I don't consider my body to be that outstanding. Mm-hmm. Um, I'm a, you know, mature male and my body isn't perfect.

But when a couple of you know, young ladies, um, who are the same age as your daughters tell you, come on Lumos, get your gear off and come run with us. You eventually give into peer pressure and you start running around that thing naked and you realize that, um, it's fun. There's nothing sexual in the thing.

We're not worried about what things Bob and, and dangle. As we're running around, we are running free. [01:19:00] And that's the exhilarating thing at Kiwi Burn. We are proud of the fact, um, that we have huge numbers of people, um, and a huge percentage of our population join us for that naked hippie fire run. And I think that's pretty awesome.

Um, last night I, uh, I was the first to, uh, hit the slope here. Um, at third degree. I wasn't planning to do it, but I decided it was warm enough, um, that I would take my clothes off and I was the first naked runner. Yay. Had, and then we got to two runners, then three. I'm going, come on you guys. This is pretty pathetic.

We got up to 10. I'm like, this took forever to get 10 runners. Um, but we got maybe 30, 30 naked hippies, so, you know, maybe 10% of the population and if we are lucky, decided to run with us and run free. And it was fun. Um, I did leave my boots on because there, there's all sorts of, of shit in the ground and I don't want my feet to have, be impaled by all sorts of things.

But yeah, it [01:20:00] was, it was good fun and I really enjoy it. And for anybody who wants to do the naked hippie fire run. You drop the first word. It doesn't have to be naked. If you wanna leave your, your lingerie on or your underwear on, that's fine. We don't judge people. We will escape.

Stevan: Just don't catch on fire.

Lumos: Just don't catch on fire. Yeah. I mean, if you are, if you're gonna wear the really nice, lacy stuff, um, and it's not cotton, it's, it's artificial, then don't get too close to the flames because, uh, that's not a good thing. So yeah, technically you are slightly safer if you're running around naked. The worst that can happen usually is some of the hair on your body gets burnt, but generally the fire is warm enough that you don't wanna go there.

It does get confusing could, because if you keep running in the same direction, you'll find one side of your body is really hot and the other side is really cold. And if you try and run backwards, it becomes a safety hazard. So it invariably, at some point we change direction [01:21:00] from direction A to direction B because we wanna cook the other.

It's rotisserie action. You wanna cook the other side of the body and you wanna warm up the cold side, and then that one gets warm enough, you change back again. And some people have complained that we keep changing direction. And I'm like, well, clearly you have never been in one of the naked hippies running out there because you don't want to just have one side melting hot and one side freezing cold.

It's not fun. But we didn't have any traffic problems. Um, to the best of my knowledge, we've had nobody injured because there was a traffic, uh, you know, a collision. So, um, the naked hippies, they, they have fun. And it's very important. And, um, the, the biggest thing to remember if you're gonna join us, make sure you put your clothes in a sensible place.

You can easily identify. There is nothing funnier than watching the people walking around afterwards going, dude, where's my clothes? Um, because the main reference point, which was the effigy, [01:22:00] has gone, it's now a burnt pile. And you, when you drop your clothes, it may or may not have been completely dark. It is now completely dark.

And you are out there with your torch. And next morning, yes, there's quite a collection of clothes still lying on the ground. I cheat. I have my own art car, so I always put my clothes on my art car. And my art car has got lights on it so I can always find it. So that's being sensible. It's, yeah. But it is, it is quite an exhilarating experience to release yourself of most of those trappings of civilization, which is the clothes.

Um, I've never considered myself to be a naturalist or anything like that, who wanted to run, walk around naked or run round, naked. 'cause during the day, it's you more likely to, to sunburn parts of your body You don't wanna sunburn, but at night with the naked hippies. Yeah. Feel free to come join us with as little or as much clothing as you feel comfortable with.

Stevan: Have you done the hippy? I could run naked run at Africa Burn. [01:23:00] You can't. That's, that's a massive um, perimeter.

Lumos: Okay. So no, I actually haven't run them at, at Africa Burn because the times I've been to Africa Burn, I've been on fire perimeter. Mm. Um, they do have a really cunning idea at Africa Burn. So normally what would happen at a burn is we are all standing around there, we're waiting for the perimeter fence to drop, and when the perimeter fence drops, the naked hippies run into circle and circle around it.

Um, for anybody who's used to bad traffic in town, when you put enough. Vehicles in the road, everything slows right down, then everything stops. And that's what happens with our naked hippies. If the, if there's too much congestion, IE the size of the fire is too small for the number of people, then the people have to slow down.

And then the traffic slows, and then the traffic stops, and then we start cooking on one side and we're not going anywhere. It's just like your standard traffic problem. So Africa Burn, [01:24:00] where you might have several thousand people wanting to do the run, they've come up with a modification to the plan, and that is that the, uh, fire perimeter crew will be standing there making sure everybody stands, sits in their little seats and watches the whole thing.

And then when now we can't, as, as Negativ hippy fire runners, we can't get close to the thing until it's collapsed. So it's now safe. So if it has poles sticking up in the air. We can't go in there because the fire team won't declare it to be safe. But what they can do at Africa Burn because, and I've suggested to a couple other places, is if you've got a lot of naked hippie runs and you've got a a, a size, a footprint for the burn, that is gonna be too small compared to the number of people you do what they do at Africa Burn, which is when we get the call, the fire perimeter crew stand up and move back about three meters and that becomes an outer perimeter for the naked [01:25:00] hippies to run in.

So there is no way they're close enough to the fire to be and in any, in, in any kind of danger, but they can now run around freely and in a really big circle so you don't have to worry about congestion issues. And it's like, yeah, let's think of a solution to solve the problem. And then we get to situation where.

Then they get hippies that are running around having a great time. And then eventually the fire lead will look at the fire and say, okay, it's now safe. It's all collapsed. There's a pile of rubble. And while it's hot, it's generally hot enough to discourage anybody from getting too close. So now it is safe.

And that point, the fire crew will get the call to say they can now walk away, drop their arms, and walk away and walk back to the marshaling point, which they will do. And then everybody just wanders into the fire. So the naked hippies have had their run, they're burnt off their energy, they've done that exhilarating, that really exhilarating thing.

And now we can just wander into the fire [01:26:00] and start talking to our friends. Um, but again, be careful. Where did you leave your clothes? Um, 'cause you will get cold.

Stevan: Yeah. Yeah. So are there any other regionals around the world that you haven't been to, but you're fascinated by?

Lumos: Uh, of course there are, I, I have to apologize at this point.

I haven't got to Aurora down in Tasmania, and that's purely because the timing doesn't, I do have a life and I sometimes have to actually, um, do other things and sometimes even to try and earn enough money to support my bad habits. So I haven't got to Aurora yet. So it's definitely on my to-do list because it's not far from home.

And have you been to Japan? I haven't, I haven't been to that one. And if I can tick that one off, I will, I'll leave out the, um, well, not, not

Stevan: bad, but the country itself.

Lumos: Just, just, just don't rush me. I'll get there Steve. So first step is, so what's, what's in [01:27:00] New Zealand? I've got that mostly ticked off. Mm-hmm.

We have occasionally had a burn in the south island. Which I haven't been able to get to and currently doesn't happen because of land. Mm-hmm. Um, but sometime, hopefully it'll happen in Australia, Aurora, I'm not going to try also, including unofficial ones, I'm not going to try and get to acts, uh, winter Equinox.

Mm-hmm. Um, 'cause it's too fricking cold. I don't enjoy the cold that much. Um, so I haven't put that one in my diary. Um, and that would tick off Australia. Um, I've been to Africa Burn a couple of times and enjoyed it. Been to Burning Man a couple of times and enjoyed it. I haven't been to anything else in Asia and I haven't been to anything else in, in Europe or the States, and there's lots of possibilities there.

And there's some places in Canada and through strange parts of Europe and there's all sorts of possibilities and there's dragon burn I'd like to get to in China. [01:28:00] And so there is plenty of possibilities for me. And I dunno which one I'll pick next because I can't do them all. Um, my dear friend, Hey, you, um, is an American.

After he retired, uh, he'd already changed his name legally to hey you. Right? But, um, after he retired, his mission was to circle the world Yes. And just keep doing burns. Yes. And I met him several times at Burns in New Zealand and Australia and that, and he was doing really well. Unfortunately he's passed over now, but it's like, yeah.

Um, would like try and fit in some more burns and, um, I'm not sure which one will be the, I, hopefully I'd like to tick off Aurora. 'cause otherwise my friends who are involved in organizing that one will get grumpy with me. I've done everything else up here and haven't been to see them. So it's like, okay, well it clashes with another event.

Uh, heavily involved in organizing, so next time. Okay. So yeah, that's life. There was always so much happening. Um, I have lots of fun doing this, but it also [01:29:00] means I can honestly say I, I went to, for example, now I can say I've been to third degree. Mm-hmm. The site was lovely. Mm-hmm. The people were lovely.

It was lots of fun and I'd happily come back again. Mm-hmm. I haven't actually had any events or burns that I've been to where I said, I'm never going back there. I have said, I'm not going back to BlackRock City unless somebody gave me an rv. Because Yeah. Spending, spending a week or two or three in a shitty tent, because that was all my budget allowed for, was not fine.

It was okay. It was bearable when I was younger, but now that I'm a bit older, it's like an r, um, shitty, shitty tents, shitty two man tent. Um, yeah. But yeah. Yeah. If somebody gave me an r, if I had the budget for an rv, if I win lotto, maybe I'll go back. But other than that, it's like, yeah, I could, I'd rather spend my, spend my money picking in, you know, maybe four or five Australian burns versus one in America.

That would be far more fun. [01:30:00] Mm-hmm. So, yeah. And of course the other thing is when you go to these burns, you will see art. And I've already, while I've been here, I've seen some really cool ideas of art. Yeah. And it's like, Ooh, that I really like how they did that. That's a cool idea. Um, and the thing to remember is that of course, um, just about all burners are more open source people than they, than we are proprietary.

So you see an idea and you think, oh, that's really cool. Nobody turns around and goes, oh no, I'm sorry. You can't do that. We've, patent did that, or it's copyright. And they're like, yeah, cool. Go for it. And of course my attitude when I see those things is, it's really good, but I could improve it by doing this.

It would be better. And my feeling is it would be better if it. So one of the early, my first year at Kiwi Burn, one of the guys there, uh, Richie Rich had built, uh, he called it a pirate ship, but really it was, um, it was a patio deck with some barrels underneath it that sat at the beach. [01:31:00] Okay. It didn't move.

Mm, it was anchored there. Yep. Okay. And my first attitude was, this is really cool, but it needs to move. Um, at the end of the event, rich turned around to me. He said, well, I'm bored with it. You can take it over if you wish. So I arranged for it to be stored on site and for the next year I got an art grant and we bought life jackets.

We found an anchor and, and, and the warp. We found some paddles. We did a whole pile of other things from a safety point of view, and we could now, now paddle out there. We, we found, we found something we could borrow a small outboard motor from. That's right. So now I can sail onto the lake. I couldn't, I couldn't go out if the wind was too strong because that was only a small outboard that we could borrow.

But that was cool. We could get out there. And at two o'clock in the morning it was quite nice walking down there, unlocking it from where I'd locked it up and then jumping in and a whole pile of people would jump on board and we'd motor out onto the lake and then cut the motor and just sit there and contemplate the universe.

And we could hear the noise happening way over there for the party from the burn. But we were sitting, [01:32:00] sitting on this little boat in the lake and that was really cool. Um, and so we did that and had a lot of fun. It kept evolving over the years. One year somebody actually stole it. They stole our boat was a prank.

No, no, no. We think it would probably ended up, um, as a, as a ski jump or as a, on a motocross track. But yeah. So where it was stored on the farm, it disappeared. Oh, right. And somebody reported it to us that it's gone. Um, so I made an art grant application Yep. To replace it. And I got an art grant application to, to buy the material to rebuild it.

And it was interesting because all I had was a couple of photographs to work out what the dimensions of it were, because we had some sides that bolted on that just lumped supply, which thin plywood that bolted on and a front that bolted on and a back that bolted on. And based on my photographs, I got within a couple inches of the width and got within, um, about a half a meter of the length to being the right size.

And so I built this new, [01:33:00] new, better improved pirate ship. Uh, took it down to the site, bolted the side down, which had been left behind and managed to find that yes, it all works. It's better than ever. Because I made design as I always do, design improvements. And um, at that stage we even then, um, we found somebody on site who had a boat and we borrowed the outboard motor off the boat until we had now had 10 horsepower motor and we could go out, cruising, go the lake.

Yeah. So those, that was all fun. And it was something special about being, I was the pirate, I was the captain. Those, those captain Wil moss. Mm-hmm. Because when you got your own pirate ship, you're, of course you're a captain. Yeah. Um, but while it was parked on, it would be parked on the beach during the day and we'd go out for sail, but when it wasn't out sailing, it would be used and taken over.

So the, um, the lost boys would take it over and have a battle with the pirates. And lots of things would go on during the day because it was a, it was a piece of art park there for people to play on or swim on or whatever. And then we'd, I'd go down there, unlock it, [01:34:00] take it out into the lake. And sometimes, and of course we had to have, we had a plank, so we would make people walk the plank if they were comfortable with it.

But yeah, make them walk the plank and they would get off and go swim and come back. Uh, yeah.

Stevan: So, so what other stories or what other, um, legends that we should be aware about for kiwi burn and, and. And any other stories that you've, um, heard over the years?

Lumos: Okay. Well, so the basic thing to remember is, um, if you're comparing us to BlackRock City mm-hmm.

We have, over, over the years, we've had people come to us and say, Kiwi Burn should be in a desert. And it's like, well, there is a problem here. We don't actually have a desert in New Zealand. There's a place called the Desert Road in the middle of the North Island, which is not a desert. It's a combination of, uh, department of conservation and military land.

And it is littered with unexploded munitions. In the old days, you used to be able to get a permit to go there. 'cause they went there quite a few [01:35:00] times these days. Uh, no and no and no. So we are like, well, okay, we don't have a shitty desert. Okay. When we changed sites, we changed sites because we had some problems with the gag town that was nearby and the old site.

Um, so we're like, okay, uh, we, we write down our list of what's the most important thing that the site should have. The most important thing we set a site should have was a river or a lake. Right? Yeah. Okay. That was number one. Yeah. Number two was nice farmland. Mm-hmm. I don't remember what number three was.

Oh, number three? No, the next, sorry. Number two was no gang town nearby. Yeah. And number three was that it's, you know, a nice place and I can't remember what was below the list after that. So we went looking and talking to people and somebody said, you wanna contact? Contact this guy, because the farm owner, he likes a good party.

He's got a big farm and it's a bit further south, so you could almost technically say it's closer to the middle of New Zealand, not the north island. So [01:36:00] we're now, you know, 6, 7, 7 hours from Auckland, but a couple hours from Wellington. But it's like, okay, we'll go down and check this out. We go down, we do a site visit, and as part of the site visit, we took a big sound system down to test out how we could bounce the sound around and.

Walk around with our meter and see, okay, are we happy? Well, is the site acceptable? And it was, and we got to meet the farm owner and his wife. Uh, they're really nice people and it's like, yep, okay, cool. This looks like what we want. And so, yeah, unfortunately if you come to Kiwi Burn, I can't offer you a shitty desert.

What I can offer you is, uh, we have a few paddocks we have as you get down to the bottom. We have a beautiful forest. We don't camp in the forest anymore because we had problems with the tree one year. Um, so it's a place for awake and aware. There's lots of art in the forest. And of course on a hot day, there's lots of shade from the trees and there happens to be a lovely river.

So for the hippies, [01:37:00] there's a river. That's all we want On a hot day, why would you run your workshop or sit in your tent when you can go down into the trees or go down and sit in the river? So I'm really sad to say we, no, we don't have a shitty desert. We just have a lovely river. We have lovely farmland.

It's a lovely place.

Stevan: Let, let's go for lunch. All right, let's go. Thank you very much. Yeah. Complicate minutes. Thank you very much, Lumos. Thank you very much.

Lumos: Thank you. Alright. Running a workshop at one o'clock

Stevan: and that was a conversation with Lumos as he quickly dashes away to get ready for his pyro workshop in the hall later or probably now.

Kind of lost track of time there. I think he's late for his workshop. It's always a breeze to talk, to talk with Pete as a nice gentle breeze. Passes through now. Yeah. Straight, [01:38:00] straight to the pool room this episode. Um, thanks everyone for tuning in for listening. We'll end it here with an acknowledgement of country where this.

Episode, this recording was held on the traditional land of the Darkinjung people. I'm Stevan Lay or Silent Disco on the Paddock. Thank you, and we'll see you in the next episode. Burn Bright and also fuck your Burn

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