Stuff You Should Know - How Burning Man Works

Episode Date: June 27, 2013

You've probably heard about Burning Man, it's a week-long party in the middle of a desert made of 50 thousand people living pretty much without rules, pretty much without any exchange of money and often nude and on drugs. Get the background on this social experiment that began in 1986 and has grown in size and scope ever since. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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See terms and learn more at discover.com slash online privacy protection. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Crowhart-Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Cloud Bryant. You gotta pass me the conch so I can speak. Okay, thanks. Now I have the conch.

Go ahead. I almost spoke about the conch. Here's the conch. I almost spoke without the conch. Here's the conch. Okay, thanks. We just do that the whole time. And we need like a circle of people to turn around and shout

what we're saying to everybody else who can't hear. Would you or would you not ever attend Burning Man? No. No? No. I mean, it sounds awesome and like I think it's pretty cool that the people who go there are having a good time. Not for me either.

I don't, I don't, yeah. I like looking at pictures. Yeah, it seems like a fun time. It seems like it would be a really neat experience, but actually going. Yeah. In, in reality now. Yeah. Thanks for getting that out of the way.

I was just curious. I'll use one of my father's old lines. I wouldn't go to Burning Man if it was in my backyard. Oh, really? Well, not Burning Man, but that used to be his thing. Right. I wouldn't see, I wouldn't see so-and-so play if they were in my backyard. So, but that's almost like, like you despise that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds to me like you wouldn't go to Burning Man just because. Oh, no, I don't despise it. I was just kidding. Right. It's, you know, it's a very interesting thing and I'm excited to talk about it. Well, let's talk about it, Chuck. If you have been living under a rock for the past like 15 or so years since it's become

a thing, we'll tell you what Burning Man is. That's right. It's a week-long festival that's held out in the desert, the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. Yeah, Black Rock City. They create their very own city. Right. It's like a planned city out in the desert. It's a small city.

It's meant to be temporary because as we'll see, everything that isn't taken down at Burning Man ends up burning. And carried out. Right. Everything that's not taken down is burned. Yeah. And that's one of the tenants. We'll get to the tenants.

Oh, yeah. The principles, right? Yeah. The 10 principles. But just like if you are a burner, that's what they're called, and you go to Burning Man, and you're just there for the week, the festival, the fun, and you get there, there's a city, and you leave, and there's a city, and if you went a month on either side, there would be nothing there.

Yeah. Because there's a group of volunteers who work as part of the Burning Man Festival who go and build the city and then take it down because is what you're saying, one of the tenants, one of the 10 principles is leave no trace. That's right. So when they leave, there is allegedly not a trace that they were ever there. I want to test that in this ancient lake bed in Arroyo. Yeah.

It is August 26th to September 3rd this year, and this year's art theme, they have an art theme every year, is a cargo cult. Yeah. Which is pretty interesting. I think so. 2010 it was Metropolis, 2009 it was Evolution, before that American Dream, Hope and Fear, the Green Man. They just have different art themes, and one of the things you can do there as a burner

is build, either create your own theme group and experience. Like a camp? Like a group, yeah, like a theme camp, which can be anything. I mean, did you look at some of the theme camps? It's all over the map. Or and or, create your own big public work of art that is under that main theme. And while you're out there, you're going to need a place to live, and a lot of people make art out of that.

I mean, really cool stuff. Like I'm not easily impressed. But when you look at some of these Burning Man, I don't want to say exhibits, but art pieces and it's just mind blowing how involved these things are, that these people carry in and assemble from all over the world. Yeah. And like you said, the theme that's given out here is meant to kind of unite all these pieces of art into something, some common thread.

Yeah, but I'm sure you can just do whatever you want. It is Burning Man after all. Oh no. It's very strict. If you show up with any art that doesn't fall within the prescribed guidelines, they will turn you away. Not true. No.

And you make that joke because Burning Man is very much known for it's anything goes atmosphere. It wasn't until 2004 that there were 10 principles that became official. Yeah. And this thing started in 1989, I think, or 1986. Yeah, let's get, let's go back. Let's go way back. All right.

1986. San Francisco. It was at Baker Beach. A group of friends burned an eight foot tall man made out of wood as an effigy. The founder and the first dude to do that was, what was his name? Harvey Milk? No. No.

His name was Larry Harvey. Larry Harvey. He was close. He supposedly got the idea from this other friend of his, this woman who had burned things in effigy on that beach before. I think that's where he supposedly got the idea. It was not from the movie The Wicker Man, he said. Yeah.

A lot of people made that comparison and he's like, no, you guys are way off. Good movie. And they're like, and have you seen the remake? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the original was pretty neat. Yeah, bizarre. So they burned this eight foot tall man and kind of threw a little party. And then the next year that became a larger man and a few more people and a few more until

it became so large that San Francisco said, you can't be burning things that large on this beach. Right. They said, fine. We'll go take it to the high desert. Well, apparently Larry Harvey was like, fine, we won't burn it, but we're going to, can we keep this thing up? And this is the year that like 800 people showed up.

Yeah. Because the San Francisco Cacophony Society, which grew out of the suicide club, which was pretty cool in and of itself, put it in the newsletter that this thing was going on. So a bunch of people showed up. Larry Harvey said that, okay, we won't burn this thing, but we're going to leave it up and we'll just take it down. Everybody's like, whoa, no, we got to burn it. So at the end of that one, they disassembled it and decided that they would go burn it

in the desert. That's right. And I looked to see if there was an original symbolic move behind this. And I don't think there was, other than he just called it an act of radical self-expression. I don't think it represented anything. That's one of the tenants, the principles. That's right. Yeah.

But it wasn't like he's the man keeping us down and we're burning him. Right. Exactly. Although it definitely has become that in a lot of sense, not necessarily the burning man, but other stuff that's burned at Burning Man. Yeah, I think you're right. That was 1989, right? Yeah, it started in 86 and then 89 and 90 is when I think they moved to Black Rock Desert.

Yeah, they went to burn it at the end of 89, to end the festival in 89, then 90, the whole thing began and ended in the desert. And it became very much this thing where it's a, there are very few rules, no laws. Some people refer to it as a temporary autonomous zone. Yeah. It is a little town, like we've said, that is just totally left alone by the authorities. The org, which is the group that runs the Burning Man Festival, deals with the Bureau of Land Management and the BLM is like, okay, you guys just don't mess this place up and

we'll let you do it and we're going to leave you alone. And they're left alone and everybody goes in and they form this social experiment, which is a city, a place, a group, a culture without consumerism or commodification. Yeah, no consumerism, no buying and selling of things, no, I mean, it's not a music festival, although there is music there, like lots of like DJ parties and stuff, but it's not like Lollapalooza or something or Coachella. There's nobody who's supposed to be making money off of this for profit. The only thing that really costs money is ice.

Yeah, and a few other things, but there supposedly is no cash transactions between burners. Right. Well, hold on, before we go any further, Chuck, it seems like it's a good time for a message break. CNN, presenting Morgan Spurlock Inside Man, a new original series Sunday night, 10 Eastern and Pacific on CNN. So okay, where were we? We were in the desert, this thing is growing from, and if you look at year by year, it's

like 800, then 2000, then 4000, then six, then 10, then 15, and it literally just kind of crept up like that up to the point now where I believe they're actually capping it at 50 and they're selling tickets and it's now selling out. Yeah, the first time it ever sold out was in 2011, and they have it set up, first of all, so that you can't scalp, like you are allowed two per credit card, but that apparently has just led to people like having a bunch of people call with their credit cards and keeping all of them for themselves. They also have it on a sliding scale, so if you are buying early, you pay more, so I

think it was like 650 bucks for a ticket. That's the opposite of how things you'd like that usually work, usually the early purchase or the cheaper ones and it gets more expensive. This does the exact opposite. It's a little weird. They get cheaper and cheaper as it comes, and apparently they're also where it's called low income tickets, which are half price of the lowest normal price, and then apparently a lot of times if you show up, there will be scalpers there, but they're selling the

tickets for less than face value, sometimes half of the lowest price. Just to fit that, that's kind of cool. I'm sure people give away a ticket here or there, but it's gotten to the point now, now that it's sold out officially, 50,000 tickets, I think, or 48,000, now it's different. You have to buy a ticket you can't just show up because you might drive 350 miles from San Francisco and they'll be like, we can't let you in. Sorry. There's rules.

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There aren't many rules aside from that, though. Like you said, it's kind of anything goes. Everything from sex clubs to people setting up their own bars to filmmakers and artists and performance artists. And I mean, it's really anything goes. And one of the things that they try to get people to do is take a little piece of that attitude back home with them, you know? It's this, for a lot of people, I imagine there's a lot of, there's some people who

are true devotees of Burning Man and Burning Man philosophy, and they go set up the city and they maintain the website you're around. That's a segment. There's others who are like new, there's some who are like there, but they're still bringing in a lot of the hangups from the outside world, and like, sure, they have dreads, but they're also like real gossipy or whatever. And there's like just normal joes, a lot of a lot of DIY makers love going to Burning Man because like you're out there in the desert and like, you better build yourself a shade

structure or else you're going to burn. There's just a lot of hands-on building. So there's a lot of normal people with normal jobs who use a week of their vacation to go out to the desert and just totally cut loose and like you're saying, like you're saying, part of the hope is that all of the stuff that happens here and just relaxing and forgetting about like having to spend money on something or, you know, like sharing your food with somebody you've never met, all of this stuff is meant to be carried out into the rest of your life, the other 51 weeks a year is the author of the article puts it.

Yeah, like I just, I just gave away my last bit of food, but a guy gave me three hits of acid and I just had sex with four strangers. Right. And I haven't worn clothes for the last three days. Yeah. And we all smell and it's great. Yeah. Now there's certain aspects of it that you probably shouldn't bring back into your normal

life like going to work naked is a bad idea under almost all circumstances. Yeah. But the mindset, the philosophy behind it, just it kind of like, like none of this matters as much as a lot of people put stock into it. Agreed. So Black Rock City itself, if you have ever, it's not just a big mass of tents. It is actually has a design. If you look at photos of Burning Man from above, it is a big sea.

Is that right? Oh yeah. Yeah. You've never seen the aerial shots? No. It should be. I don't know. It should be a B.

Sure. Or an M. And it is a big sea with the Burning Man, they just call him the man, is at the center of course. And supposedly you can, they have him up on a big pedestal now, like 50 feet high and right. It varies every year, but he's generally with the pedestal about 100 feet high. Yeah. So you can see him from anywhere in the camp.

Gotcha. And I think this year, because of cargo cult, they're building him on top of like this flying saucer. Oh really? Structure. That's what the pavilion is meant to look like. Oh cool. Yeah.

It's in the hopes that aliens, oh yeah, it looks a lot like a crop circle. It looks very much like a crop circle. Or half finished crop circle. Yeah, lazy crop circle. The org is saying on the Burning Man website that they hope that they're sure that this pavilion will attract lots of aliens. And they hope that it will stimulate our planet's faltering economy. Which I've read a bunch of times and I said, like surely this is a joke.

It may be. What was that alien thing? It was just lost on me. No, the economy thing. Oh, oh, oh. They're hoping that our planet's economy will be stimulated by Burning Man, attracting aliens. If you take the whole alien part out, the fact that Burning Man is concerned with our planet's

economy being stimulated. There's this really interesting interview on a website called Public Books. It's an interview with TJ Jackson Lears and it's called The Confidence Economy. I recommend everybody go read it because he's talking about how everything has transitioned to economics now. Like as he puts it, like it went from like all of our moral ideals went from the religious to the cultural and now to the economic. And so the idea of risk, this existential idea that like we're in danger or there's

danger out there and by doing certain things or avoiding certain things where we're going into or avoiding risk has now been melted down to a number on a banker's computer. Like that's what risk is to us now. Everything is economics and like seeing that on their website like really kind of brought that home. Huh. That's that was my little thing on there. Have you, do you watch a Veep?

No. It's the, the White House show comedy and one of the guys, the new characters this year is Gary, what's his face from office space? Yeah. Gary Cole. Yeah. And he's the numbers guy and it's just sort of straight along those lines. All he does is talk numbers and that's his whole entire job and the staff's entire job.

That's how we become as a culture. Everything is economic space now. It's kind of sad. It is. So back to Black Rock City where numbers don't count. It is 940 acres. That's a number. And it is, it is like you said, like a city, they have their iStore, obviously they have

recycling and volunteering in medical facilities and information facilities and shuttles. Although one of the rules is you cannot drive on the playa. That's what they call it. That's why there's a lot of bikes. Biking seems to be the best way to get around. Apparently you can get a permit from the city, the nearby city that playa falls under, I guess, the same county. So you can because there's art cars out there.

Well, you're not allowed to drive where the people are though. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's like motor homes. This is what most people stay in. Yeah. But like once you get there, you like take the keys out and burn them.

And then at the end of the week, you're like, man, I didn't burn my keys. That was self expression true, but there are no fires directly on the ground because that leaves a burn scar on the gentle high desert. Yeah. So they have to, I guess, have like fire pits and stuff. And I guess we could get into the core principles, right? Well, yeah, we've been kind of dancing around them a little bit. You said leave no trace.

That's a big one. Radical self expression. Yeah. Radical inclusion. Yeah. Radical self reliance and radical self expression. Those are the three radicals. Right.

Where so you can't just be like, um, like, hey, man, I forgot to bring some water. Radical self inclusion or radical inclusion. Yeah. And they can be like radical self reliance jerk. Yeah. Uh, although gifting is a big one. Um, there, it is very much about giving things without, uh, it says gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

So it's not about trading even it's about giving right. I will give you herpes. You don't have to give me anything back. Uh, you've mentioned decommodification, no, uh, commercial sponsorships or anything like that. Yeah. Like that's why it wouldn't be a music festival. It's too commercialized.

Exactly. Communal effort. Yeah. It's all about collaborating. It's the amount of, the amount of nails for my, uh, big, uh, giant alien and building out of wood. Right. Don't worry, man.

I got nails. I got your back. Right. We'll just disassemble my giant alien out of wood and use the nails from that. Civic responsibility. Um, we value the civil society, uh, community members who organize events assume responsibility for public welfare. Yeah.

Um, that's a little tricky. I wonder what the law says about that. Well, that's what I'm saying like, like what if someone got really hurt in someone's theme camp? I don't know. You know, I, I, I genuinely don't know. It says that, uh, the events have to be in accordance with the local laws, but they clearly break those a lot.

Yeah. You know, yeah, there's a lot of laws broken at, at Burning Man, but they don't have their own laws. So technically there's no laws broken. And then the last two are participation and, um, immediacy and the immediate experience is in many ways the most important touchdown of the culture is what they say. Yeah. I like that participation's in there.

You can't just be like, uh, just some dude hanging out in the background, like staring at everybody. That's, they want you to get involved. Right. Not only for your benefit, cause you know, no one wants to be stared at while they're nude and on acid. It's a bum trip. Well, while we're on that, we should say that Burning Man is in certain areas are an X-rated

and, um, and they try to put up signage to indicate cause there are families that go, I don't think there's a lot of families that go, no, but there are and they try to indicate like, Hey, this is a group sex camp or this is a nudist camp, um, stay away. Can't you read the sign? Yeah. Um, but keep your kids away. You might want to though is, is the recommendation. Like if you're not super open minded or if you are easily offended or if you don't want

to permanently damage your kids or if you want to be a good parent, then don't take your family or you may not want to go at all. Like you really need to know what you're getting into here folks. Yeah. Because you're going to be thrust right into the center of a like 50,000 people who all came to like party. Yeah. Big part of it.

Like you can call it a social experiment. You can call it like, um, you know, performance art and it is all those things, but it's also people partying all the time for like a week. Yeah. Um, there's a lot of drugs and alcohol involved. Yeah. And, you know, everything else. So if you're, you know, not cool with that, then I would imagine Burning Man would be

a really bad place for you to go spend a week. Yeah. But if you don't know that and if you bought a ticket and made your way out there and you don't know that at that point, then you almost say you should go. Well, I just, I want to see that dude. I think Julia Layton writes that like, you don't have to go for a week. Like if you're thinking about it, go test it out for a few days. Yeah.

That's what I would do. There's no way I would go for a week. And I don't think they sell any ticket other than for a week. Yeah. So if you decide that you're going to have like, whoa, I really like this. I really like partying every single day. Like I'll stay the whole week. You can stay.

Yeah. Cause you got your ticket. Um, and on the sex note, uh, there have been, uh, reports of sexual assaults and even a rape. Um, it is clearly not the, uh, it's opposite of everything that Burning Man stands for, but there are always bad apples. And I think the general consensus is some dumb dudes show up thinking like, Hey, it's just sex fest. Right.

Cause everyone's free love, free love. You need to go to sandals for that. Exactly. It's not really the case. Like that stuff does happen, but it's just like it would happen in the real world. I mean, maybe people are a little more like loose with their morals, but they're, you know, been reports of like a woman like dancing nude and then guys like kind of descending on her.

Like that's not okay. Right. Just cause it's Burning Man doesn't mean she's inviting you to touch her. You know what I'm saying? Exactly. And that raises a really excellent point. Like, um, Larry Harvey, like from the beginning has, has said like, this is, this is a social experiment.

And I wonder what he was thinking it was going to be because surely he's found that any utopia you create will eventually become poisoned by the humans who go and take part in it. Yeah. And I think it got, I mean, it grew way, way, way bigger than they ever thought it would, which is generally when the problems come, they've still capped it at 50,000. Yeah. There's still people who like can't go.

So like they're not capping it at like 10,000 or 1,000. They chose 50,000. Yeah. Um, so, you know, I wonder like what they expected or what they're seeing, the people who are like really a part of the Burning Man org, what they're seeing that, um, that surprised them or that they were like, I knew this would happen. Yeah. I imagine ticket sales.

I mean, if it's 600 bucks a ticket, I know there's lower ones, but that's like 30 million bucks. It's supposedly not for profit. Yeah. I know they recently lumber, lumber is extremely expensive. I know they transferred the holding to a different company recently and there was like a, a big battle between the original founders because money got involved. And I think the, the original guy got kind of upset because people wanted to get paid.

They were on the board. More money. Larry Harvey. Yeah. Cause there's another guy named Jerry James who is attributed as one of the founders with Larry Harvey. Oh yeah. Yeah.

And what was he upset about the financial thing? I hadn't heard anything about that. Yeah. I think they, I should look this up more. They transferred it to a new company, um, uh, Burning Man production LLC or something like a new nonprofit. Yeah. I'm not sure how it all shook out, but I think some people cashed out that were on the original

board is how it went down. Huh. I hope I didn't get that wrong. So let's say you want to go, you're down with all this. You're like, sure, I'll get my sunscreen out and put it in all the right places and take my clothes off, shave my head, paint myself green. Apparently that's futile because everybody gets covered in dust and turns gray. Oh really?

Yeah. Gross. Isn't that weird? So the sunscreen just gets covered in, I guess, and everybody turns into like this new race of people that have gray skin. I can't imagine anything more uncomfortable, um, but let's say you do want to go, uh, you've bought your ticket, bring your sunscreen, bring your water. Yeah.

Yeah. You want to bring a gallon of water per day, per person. At least. Just for drinking. Yeah. Plus another half gallon for like bathing and washing your clothes if you're into that kind of thing. Um, if you're a sweater like me, you need to bring more than that.

Yeah. That's what out that gallon of water by noon. Yeah. And I mean like that's serious stuff because they don't give you water at Burning Man. No. Like you might find some nice soul to do it, but like there, you should not come expecting them to give you water. That's right.

Uh, it gets cold at night in the desert. If you've never been there, it's kind of interesting. It can be like a 40 degree temperature swing. Yeah. Than the course of a day to a night. So you got to bring your warm clothes as well. You might not have someone to snuggle up to at Burning Man. You know, right?

Can't count on that. Sure. Um, and you can't just make a fire just anywhere either. Can't make a fire just anywhere and you need to bring your own lights too. Um, they're obviously your lights everywhere, but you want your little flashlight and your headlamp and all that good stuff. Yeah. Cause it gets dark.

It's really dark. And people put our installations wherever they want and you may trip over them because a lot of those installations have rebar and most of them do I think, uh, and then, um, you need to be able to be highly adaptable because like you said, you might have a plan in place, but Burning Man, you never know what's going to go on. So you got to be able to just kind of roll with it. That's sort of the idea. Yeah.

You know, if you're a rigid individual, you don't want to go to Burning Man. No, you're not going to have a very good time. Or your, um, will will break and you'll be like, okay, I'm ready to just kind of let let things fly. Yeah. That's true. I just watched that documentary on the source family. Have you heard of that one?

No. They were a, uh, oh yeah, cult in the seventies and I read an article on them 40 times. Yeah. It's very interesting. A lot of people they, in fact, almost everyone they interviewed from today wasn't like, yeah, this was some bad cult, they were like, they were still sort of living that life. Well, it was like paradise lost. They all moved down to Mexico and lived on the beach and like we're swimming or I thought

it was Mexico. No, they were in LA and they eventually went to Hawaii and that was kind of the end of them. And then so the leader had like a bad trip on the beach and then everything turned dark from that point on. Right? No, I think you're thinking something else. No, the process church.

No, this was a source. Okay. I'm talking about the process. No, this is the source family. I've heard of them. I don't know anything about them. Yeah, it's a new documentary. It's interesting.

Okay. What's it called? The Source Family. Okay. Yeah. Well, I'll watch that. You read the article in the 40 and times about the process. Was that the 70s too?

It was like late 60s, early 70s. Yeah, man, those there were cults all over the place. Yeah. All you had to be was like a halfway likable person with a steady supply of acid and like pretty much got your own cult. That's who this guy was. Yeah. He was like 6'6 and had this big gray beard and they're like, you are the father.

Right. And he's like, I know. Well, in their tenants, the first thing they had to do every morning was inhale 6 seconds from the sacred herb. So, basically, just get everyone stoned like very first thing in the morning. Wake and bake is what they call that. Yeah. But they're also a band.

It's really interesting. This weird psychedelic music and stuff. Still around. Or at the time. Well, some of the surviving members have gotten back together now and are playing again. Maybe that's what I've heard of is the band, The Source. I didn't realize they were a cult too. Yeah, they were cult first and foremost.

It's like the polyphonic spree. It's exactly like who they ended up sort of emulating. That's cool. White robes and the whole deal. Yeah. All right. That was a sidebar. But in the spirit of Burning Man.

You know my buddy Toby? He was in the spree. Yeah. He's like a tambourine player. No. He taught himself to play the theremin. Oh, really? Yeah.

He is the producer of a movie that's coming out in July or August with Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck called A The Body Saints. Oh, great. Yeah, I've heard of that. He's a producer of it. Good for him, man. I like that, dude. Yeah.

He's been making his way through Hollywood just like on sheer grit. Yeah. And he, if you're interested in a Bonnie Prince Billy fan, he did a, produced a short film called Pioneer Starring Bonnie Prince Billy that was really, really good. Yeah. Him and his collaborator, David Lowry, two of them collaborate and make some good stuff. It's a way to go, guys. Not David Lowry from Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven.

No, no. Yeah. Yes. All right. Okay. Well, if you want to learn more about Burning Man, go to Burning Man. You can also visit the Burning Man site or you can check out our article on howstuffworks.com just type Burning Man in the search bar.

And since I said search bar, it's time again for a message break. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs.

Of course. Yes. They can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly.

And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it.

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And now it's time for Listener Mail. Did we even say that they burned the man at the end? That's the whole point. They burned the man on the last night. Oh, wow. Okay. So let's keep it going for a second. By the way, they burned the man on the last night.

Yeah. The end. Which is neat. And I was thinking about this. Like they have the man. So anywhere in camp, you can see this giant man. And that I think has to really kind of add something like this week is going to end. This man is going to die.

We're going to burn him. And then after that, this week is over. And then we're all going to die eventually. Like just the fact that the man and what everybody knows is going to happen to the man is looming over everybody the whole week. Like what effect does that have on you? Dude, you should go to Burning Man and start a theme camp. Yeah.

I'll just talk about what we're going to do to that poor man. Okay. I'd go. So that's the official end of the Burning Man episode now. That's right. Now it's time for Listener Mail. That's right. I'm going to call this sort of a correction on a correction.

Remember when we got the email about the American Red Cross denying men who have sex with men? MSM. MSM to be able to give blood. Yeah. This sort of explains that a little more thoroughly. Okay. Guys, I've been catching up on stuff you should know. After hearing the April 9th Platypus episode, I had to race on to respond.

Penelope was correct when she wrote that the American Red Cross permanently defers or turns away MSM donors. It was incorrect however to ascribe this as a Red Cross policy in origin. Policy was determined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, not the Red Cross. The Red Cross is called the FDA ban medically and scientifically unwarranted even and seeks policy change because the FDA ban needlessly excludes healthy donors. I think we came down the Red Cross a little bit. Yeah, we did.

So it's really the FDA we're mad at. Exactly. Please let your listeners know that it's not the American Red Cross which is discriminating, U.S. FDA, the Red Cross is obligated by law to adhere to the ban until the FDA can be convinced to change it. I have met some people who though they are eligible to give blood refused to donate because they object to the FDA ban, though well-intentioned this refusal will only hurt people who need life-saving blood.

There are always better ways to pressure the FDA to change its policy. Big government, am I right? Yeah. In the meantime, I hope everyone who's able to donate blood, platelets and other blood products will continue to do so. Cheers. Kat. Thanks a lot, Kat.

Yeah, I feel bad that we got that wrong or that we were misled by Penelope. Maybe Penelope didn't know herself. Not everybody knows. It's the FDA's fault. That's right. So FDA, change it. What's your problem? And then if someone from the FDA is going to write, say, no, you know it really is.

It's Lyndon Johnson's fault. If you want to lay something at the feet of somebody else, we want to know about that, especially if it clears something up that we got wrong, you can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast, join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know, you can send us an email to stuffpodcastediscovery.com and as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. Hey, Netflix streams, TV shows and movies directly to your TV, computer, wireless device or game console. You can get a 30 day free trial membership.

Go to www.netflix.com slash stuff and sign up now. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast or wherever Listen to new episodes of Get Real with Caroline Hobbie every Monday on the Nashville Podcast Network available on iHeart radio app, apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcast.