Burner Podcast is an independently produced, not-for-profit show and is not associated with the Burning Man Organization or its subsidiaries. The views expressed are also not representative of the entire Burning Man community and are presented here for entertainment purposes only.
For general inquires about Burning Man, please visit burningman.com
For general inquires about Burning Man, please visit burningman.com
WHAT IS A BURNER?
Ask 10 burners and you'll get 10 different answers but, generally speaking, one who is involved with the Burning Man community, attends events and attempts to live by the 10 Principals.
Ask 10 burners and you'll get 10 different answers but, generally speaking, one who is involved with the Burning Man community, attends events and attempts to live by the 10 Principals.
Meet the team...
(mr)Arash Afshar
Host of Burner Podcast
Network Executive Producer
Born and raised in San Diego, California (interrupted by a stint in Tehran, Iran), Arash Afshar, also know as (mr)Arash, is an artist, photographer and media personality. As a member of the creative collective and Hip-hop based music group, Diego Brown Project, Arash has directed music videos and choreographed/performed in live shows at various venues and events in Southern California and Hawaii. Arash is also the co-founder of Platform Collection and co-hosts the Crappy Awesome Podcast; a weekly interview show focused on the independent Hip-hop scene, urban arts, relationships, comedy and personal stories. Arash listens to a lot of Trance and discovered the Burner community at YOUtopia, San Diego's regional burn. Feel free to tweet him @mrarash
Host of Burner Podcast
Network Executive Producer
Born and raised in San Diego, California (interrupted by a stint in Tehran, Iran), Arash Afshar, also know as (mr)Arash, is an artist, photographer and media personality. As a member of the creative collective and Hip-hop based music group, Diego Brown Project, Arash has directed music videos and choreographed/performed in live shows at various venues and events in Southern California and Hawaii. Arash is also the co-founder of Platform Collection and co-hosts the Crappy Awesome Podcast; a weekly interview show focused on the independent Hip-hop scene, urban arts, relationships, comedy and personal stories. Arash listens to a lot of Trance and discovered the Burner community at YOUtopia, San Diego's regional burn. Feel free to tweet him @mrarash
Navjeet "Nav" Sarna
Network Music Editor
Producer, Alkaline
A self-proclaimed music snob, Navjeet has years of DJing experience, spinning a wide variety of genres including Techno, Left Field House and Bangarra. Raised in San Diego, CA, he has an extensive history of festival hopping and international night-clubbing to draw from. You can get to know Navjeet by checking out the August, 2012 episode of Crappy Awesome Podcast. Navjeet can be reached @iamnavjeet
Network Music Editor
Producer, Alkaline
A self-proclaimed music snob, Navjeet has years of DJing experience, spinning a wide variety of genres including Techno, Left Field House and Bangarra. Raised in San Diego, CA, he has an extensive history of festival hopping and international night-clubbing to draw from. You can get to know Navjeet by checking out the August, 2012 episode of Crappy Awesome Podcast. Navjeet can be reached @iamnavjeet
Tori Massie
Associate Producer
This is Tori's Tinder profile: "Amateur parkour... dance-off style (everyone's a winner), burner, rock climber, camper, recycler, mam, non-gmo... I just need an extra boat for all my ladies and champagne...
https://soundcloud.com/TechnoSphinx IG: @TechnoSphinx
"I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure anymore..."
Associate Producer
This is Tori's Tinder profile: "Amateur parkour... dance-off style (everyone's a winner), burner, rock climber, camper, recycler, mam, non-gmo... I just need an extra boat for all my ladies and champagne...
https://soundcloud.com/TechnoSphinx IG: @TechnoSphinx
"I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure anymore..."
Lee Hemingway
Associate Producer, Burner Podcast
By day, Lee is a freelance designer with knack for creating visually pleasing narratives. By another time of day, he’s the guru of membership recruitment and retention for Justified Hype. By night, he’s tired from serving the creatives and professionals of SoCal and most likely watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. If he could find any free time, he’d probably be learning how to program Arduino lights.
Associate Producer, Burner Podcast
By day, Lee is a freelance designer with knack for creating visually pleasing narratives. By another time of day, he’s the guru of membership recruitment and retention for Justified Hype. By night, he’s tired from serving the creatives and professionals of SoCal and most likely watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. If he could find any free time, he’d probably be learning how to program Arduino lights.
Louis Galipeau
Associate Producer, Burner Podcast
Growing up in Canada he developed his love for festival culture listening to late night college radio and going to underground parties (when pagers were still a thing). Now living at the tip of the Bermuda Triangle (32°18′N 64°47′W) he taps into its energies daily. This fuels him in all of his endeavors be it as a parent, teacher, technology manager, event producer, DJ, traveler, etc. He is known for creating the Annual Burner Playlist. You can access them all from the Burner Music Archive https://music.bm. He can be found at @muloka
Associate Producer, Burner Podcast
Growing up in Canada he developed his love for festival culture listening to late night college radio and going to underground parties (when pagers were still a thing). Now living at the tip of the Bermuda Triangle (32°18′N 64°47′W) he taps into its energies daily. This fuels him in all of his endeavors be it as a parent, teacher, technology manager, event producer, DJ, traveler, etc. He is known for creating the Annual Burner Playlist. You can access them all from the Burner Music Archive https://music.bm. He can be found at @muloka
Rebel Dharma
Executive Producer, Burner Podcast
Rebel Dharma aka Michael Navarro is an American Artist, Builder, and proponent of intentional communities and engagement. He is the founder of Alkaline Arts, an arts based support services LLC, and stays actively involved throughout the year completing projects of all types. When he is not working on art projects he is engaged with community initiative projects and disaster relief aid managing the Los Angeles regional Chapter of Burners Without Borders. Most recently he started Desert Guardians.Org, a not for profit organization dedicated to the protection and conservation of public desert lands.
Executive Producer, Burner Podcast
Rebel Dharma aka Michael Navarro is an American Artist, Builder, and proponent of intentional communities and engagement. He is the founder of Alkaline Arts, an arts based support services LLC, and stays actively involved throughout the year completing projects of all types. When he is not working on art projects he is engaged with community initiative projects and disaster relief aid managing the Los Angeles regional Chapter of Burners Without Borders. Most recently he started Desert Guardians.Org, a not for profit organization dedicated to the protection and conservation of public desert lands.
Into the Fire
Suzanne Ayriss aka Super Suz
Host and Producer of Into the Fire
Network Contributing Producer
Super Suz considers herself more like a superhero's sidekick. Suz is a member of East Bay Burners by virtue of living in the East Bay and by participating in the community. Suz has been on several build teams and made successful, community-building and fundraising events that have collected thousands of dollars for playa art builds. "BBQ grill and potato salad on a warm summer night, soup and salad speaker's forums, backyard happy hours and weekend campouts can all make a great event and raise funds." Super Suz is also the Regional Contact for BURN2 Regional, a virtual reality, online burner community in Second Life.
Host and Producer of Into the Fire
Network Contributing Producer
Super Suz considers herself more like a superhero's sidekick. Suz is a member of East Bay Burners by virtue of living in the East Bay and by participating in the community. Suz has been on several build teams and made successful, community-building and fundraising events that have collected thousands of dollars for playa art builds. "BBQ grill and potato salad on a warm summer night, soup and salad speaker's forums, backyard happy hours and weekend campouts can all make a great event and raise funds." Super Suz is also the Regional Contact for BURN2 Regional, a virtual reality, online burner community in Second Life.
Additional Support and Alumni
Ramiro Martinez
Chief Playa Scientist
Born in the San Fernando Valley, CA. Ramiro moved to San Diego to study architecture with a focus on urban planning and temporary space. He has 5 years’ experience in design build installations. A founding class President for the Numisius Chapter of Alpha Rho Chi (a professional co-ed fraternity for architecture students), Ramiro is also a founding member of Sitting on the Blvd, a design collective in San Diego. As Art Director, Ramiro leads the Burner Podcast team on large art project builds for Burning Man and regional Burns.
Chief Playa Scientist
Born in the San Fernando Valley, CA. Ramiro moved to San Diego to study architecture with a focus on urban planning and temporary space. He has 5 years’ experience in design build installations. A founding class President for the Numisius Chapter of Alpha Rho Chi (a professional co-ed fraternity for architecture students), Ramiro is also a founding member of Sitting on the Blvd, a design collective in San Diego. As Art Director, Ramiro leads the Burner Podcast team on large art project builds for Burning Man and regional Burns.
"That" Meg King
Executive Producer, Burner Podcast
Meg suffers from volunteerism extremis. Among her many vices are cat-herding, questionnaire construction, art boosterism and whiskey. Her hours are filled with friends, school, meetings and more whiskey. She served for three years as YOUtopia's City Planner, three years as Elections Proctor for SDCAP and is a part of the colab directorial team. Other volunteerism efforts include Media Lead for San Diego Burning Man Film Festival, SD CORE co-lead, SD Souk co-lead and is co-creator of ARTiculate. Meg served as Producer until episode 30 of Burner Podcast and is currently the co-lead of YOUtopia. She can be reached at @thatmegking
Executive Producer, Burner Podcast
Meg suffers from volunteerism extremis. Among her many vices are cat-herding, questionnaire construction, art boosterism and whiskey. Her hours are filled with friends, school, meetings and more whiskey. She served for three years as YOUtopia's City Planner, three years as Elections Proctor for SDCAP and is a part of the colab directorial team. Other volunteerism efforts include Media Lead for San Diego Burning Man Film Festival, SD CORE co-lead, SD Souk co-lead and is co-creator of ARTiculate. Meg served as Producer until episode 30 of Burner Podcast and is currently the co-lead of YOUtopia. She can be reached at @thatmegking
Freckle
Contributing Sound Engineer
Freckle was born and raised in San Diego and has a professional background in computer science and has been working as a software engineer at various start-ups in Southern California since 2005. He was introduced to Burning Man in 2011 through a veteran co-worker and absolutely fell in love with a community that praises self-reliance and self-expression and has attended every year since. Although already a musician, Burning Man solidified in Freckle a passion to perform and acted as the catalyst to seriously pursue DJ'ing. Freckle performs at various clubs, festivals, and house parties throughout the year and runs the sound production for Shangri-Lawless, a San Diego-based theme camp, of which he is one of the camp leads. By engulfing himself in musical pursuits, Freckle learned a huge amount about not just the performance aspects of DJ'ing, but also the production of original music which has built up his knowledge and experience around mastering and manipulating audio files. This experiential track has prepared Freckle for his most professional sounding title yet, Contributing Sound Engineer for the Burner Podcast.
Contributing Sound Engineer
Freckle was born and raised in San Diego and has a professional background in computer science and has been working as a software engineer at various start-ups in Southern California since 2005. He was introduced to Burning Man in 2011 through a veteran co-worker and absolutely fell in love with a community that praises self-reliance and self-expression and has attended every year since. Although already a musician, Burning Man solidified in Freckle a passion to perform and acted as the catalyst to seriously pursue DJ'ing. Freckle performs at various clubs, festivals, and house parties throughout the year and runs the sound production for Shangri-Lawless, a San Diego-based theme camp, of which he is one of the camp leads. By engulfing himself in musical pursuits, Freckle learned a huge amount about not just the performance aspects of DJ'ing, but also the production of original music which has built up his knowledge and experience around mastering and manipulating audio files. This experiential track has prepared Freckle for his most professional sounding title yet, Contributing Sound Engineer for the Burner Podcast.
Amber Rose
Executive Producer, Alkaline
Amber Rose is an artist, jewelry designer, podcast host and entrepreneur. She was born and raised in San Diego and has been associated with Desert Hearts since their inception. Amber Rose co-founded Burner Podcast Presents: Alkaline along with Navjeet Sarna and Arash Afshar, and served as Producer for the earlier shows.
Executive Producer, Alkaline
Amber Rose is an artist, jewelry designer, podcast host and entrepreneur. She was born and raised in San Diego and has been associated with Desert Hearts since their inception. Amber Rose co-founded Burner Podcast Presents: Alkaline along with Navjeet Sarna and Arash Afshar, and served as Producer for the earlier shows.
Thanasi Glavas
Contributing Editor
New York transplant, community organizer and nine year veteran of the burn, Thanasi wrote and curated the Burner Podcast Blog platform during the first year of the show. He can be reached through the contact form below.
Contributing Editor
New York transplant, community organizer and nine year veteran of the burn, Thanasi wrote and curated the Burner Podcast Blog platform during the first year of the show. He can be reached through the contact form below.