Zoe Nightingale

Burning man episodes start now! First up the minds behind Big Imagination try to explain to me why they thought it was a good idea to chop up a giant 1977 air bus, and close down roads from the Mohave Desert to Black Rock city...so they could put half the cock pit of a plane on the ground. The thing is so massive, so heavy, so unimaginably large...and I know most things at the burn are just for the fuck of it, but never has it been this expensive, and this much of an undertaking with such medium results. I would rather them bring a 747 sized black rubber cock down the road. Who wants to be in a plane? I hate being in planes. I'll tell you what's an impressive art car. It's a giant purple and pink piñata, built on a fucking crane, that has lollipops that rise up out of it's belly with a platform disco ball candy dance floor. It cost 20k all in. But I wanted to put my judgements away and give them a chance to explain to me exactly what kind of Peyote they must have been smoking when they decided...hey! I know,

I love Rennaissance festivals. Why? Because it's full of people who usually are hiding behind a 4chan handle or on Reddit chat threads arguing about whether the Hobbit is a better movie than Starwars. It's just fabulous. People are happy, full of turkey legs, and have a commitment to costuming and role playing that I admire. It's probably my 11 years of circus/theatre camp and my years of playing Dungeons and Dragons that allows me to to blend seamlessly with these kind of people. It's neat. It's a wonderful escape from the actual reality of the 4 headless horsemen who are disguised as Hurricanes, earthquakes and orange man babies. This episode won't really teach you anything new, but it will maybe remind you that behind any facade, there is a heart that is searching to connect with the world around it. We are all in this together, we all just use different tools to shield us from the world. Edited by Emily Brodtman

I learn something new about my family every time we have dinner. The question of nature vs. nurture is always buzzing around my head anytime i'm with home because growing up I always felt like I was the fly in their ointment, But with age I have had the pleasure of being able to see how not only am I their genetic copy but how deep the connective tissue is that ties us together. This year has been a series of brutally challenging lessons for me. I lost two people who I felt were the building blocks of my life. People I loved with every cell of my body. To say I've struggled with accepting this, would be an understatement. I am at my core a little hermit crab (who hates finding a new shell) and when it comes to the people and things I love, I just want to grab them and pull them into my shell and keep them there with me forever, even if we've both outgrown it. The struggle has been real and after this burning man I felt like that fire engine haired girl in Run Lola Run...like i'd been sprinting my entire life

I feel like Ahab lost in a sea of hatred looking for a great white whale to give my life meaning again. I literally don't know what to do or say anymore. The hate is so deep, the ideology is so wrong. I left this country to get away from this and the moment I'm back I literally trip and land on the laps of two actual real life trump voting, grand wizard loving men. These two were gems. Fathers, business owners, best friends, hard working Americans..and the are the reason Trump got elected. The insane thing is what they don't understand is that the golden orange cow they put into office is the actual palpable representation of why the were born into a cycle of poverty in the first place. Capitalism, lack of education, corporate rights over human rights, money over decency, greed over community...the irony is simply lost on them that the man they put in power is their actual arch nemesis. We are fucked fucked fucked fucked fucked fucked fucked. I won't spoil it, but they literally contradict themselves at every

This lovely man, who I'll call Juan Doe, had skin like fresh caramel glowing behind full moon eyes and a smile you needed sunglasses to look directly at. Juan lived and breathed dignity and danced like summer twister. Hot n furious, body twisting and contorting to match the frantic beats of the African drums that surrounded us at the sweaty dance halls he would take me to. Pure machismo was wafting out of every pore while the men (dripping in gold chains) twirled bright lipped women in sky high heels. There was a moment where my mother, who was being spun around by a coke can shaped man dressed in all silk, yelled out to me, " this is heaven!" I LOVE CUBA. I want to eat it and keep a little piece of it inside my body at all times so I can remember one very important thing, THERE IS NO WRONG TIME TO DANCE. There is nothing more fun that watching men and women of all shapes, ages and sizes, blaze across a restaurant floor at 3 pm. He became my city guide. Showing me the nooks and crevices of the crumbling city

IBIZA. I have always viewed this tiny Baleric Island as the Ft Lauderdale of Europe. With hordes of sun burnt Brittish lads looking like candy canes draped in matching neon on Stag Do tank tops followed by hordes of marshmallow lipped mega ho's stumbling around in their Chinese foot binding shoes, shit faced and looking for their next semen injection. Not my cup of tea. When I travel I like to either go somewhere and get lost with people I love, OR I go core, I go cheap, dirty and local and alone. I don't do 40 dollar California rolls, (Sunset Ashram are you fucking serious? Some of the prices made me literally want to bitch slap the bartender...like are we both witnessing and actively participating in agreeing that the total sum cost of rum, mint, ice, sugar and some Italian surfer to crush it half harzardly, put a spring of mint in it then do a line of coke off the fake tits of a waitresses under the bartop....is 25 EUROS! Makes me want to kill someone) I don't travel to speak english. I travel to learn, to

Parents are tricky, you can't pick them, you cannot change them, all you can do is bask in the glory of the two bodies your soul chose to enter the world through. I don't know what amorphous sentient spaghetti monsters in the sky to thank for giving me these two vessels...but thank you thank you thank you. Music: Heart of Gold: Neil Young

Kathy Jane, my mother and my guide through this earth is always the first person I call after I do something outrageous. She is my North Star, and always allows me to process my failures in a thoughtful way. There is no better person to help me navigate my hearts ups and downs and it is my honor to be able to share her laughter and words of wisdom with you. Mom, I LOVE YOU. Music: Neil Diamond: Heart of gold Adele: Send My Love Check out Skirt Club for updates on their next parties!

DRUM ROLL PLEASE.....the answers to all of last weeks episode and more! I have three more interviews to dot the i's and cross the t's of what really goes down in a all female hetrosexual orgy. Next up, my dear mother and father discuss my experience there and weigh in on why I am the way I am. Host note: I love skirt club. I love it's founders I love it's message I love their events and everyone should try this for themselves. Everyone else was having a fabulous time and it literally looked like one of the most beautiful porn movies you've ever watched....perfect lighting, gorgeous women, big white furry rugs, hot tubs, pink champagne...strap ons, wands the works. It's a wonderful place to learn more about yourself, so try it for yourself, I guarantee you you'll be more successful than me. Music: I want to be evil: Eartha Kitt Nasty Girl: Vanity 6 Follow Margo Stilley @margostilley Skirt Club @skirtclub

When Genevieve La June the founder of Skirt Club UK, asked me to give a comedic speech at her New York event (a all female sex party for straight women) I was THRILLED. It was not an easy task they gave me, to deliver a speech on Women's liberation since the 1920's to 100 New York City bad ass bitches in 1,000 dollar matching Agent Provocateur lingerie sets, sipping pink champagne greedily awaiting me to finish my silly speech so they could feast on each others innards. Subsequently, I couldn't have been more nervous, but in the end everyone was laughing so hard I thought they'd pop open their corsets, so I've concluded I killed it. Despite this I ultimately failed in my goal, which was to finally have sexual congress with a pair of XX chromosomes. To be fair I had a pink albatross hanging around my clavicle because I have been toying around with the idea of bisexuality for some time. Primarily after a major break up when I quietly thought to myself, that's it, i'm finished with foreskin...bring on the V. Don

I LOVE CUBA. But it confused the deviled egg outta me. Here's what I DO know.....It is a delicious, sensual, colorful, vibrant, wonderland that has the kind of magic only a country that has been preserved in the past could have. Technology simply isn't there. We had to buy the internet like we were buying a crack rock in a street ally. A little man runs out to your car and sells you wifi! Everyone you meet looks right in your eyes. Everywhere you go spontaneous dance erupts like techtonic plates crashing into one another. While it is a community that is ready for change, i'm not sure their ready for the kind of disconnection, connection brings. I haven't had a vacation like this in years. Totally random, using fate as my guide, random chance as my destiny, no GPS, just maps and stars and wishes to get places. You have to be on time, because you can't call anyone!! Remember when people were on time not just texting you a sundry of preposterous excuses. I DO. You didn't show up late, because then your friends d

How do we chose what we feel empathy for? Can you think of yourself as a good, moral person when you consistently overlook your fellow humans who are in obvious need? Every day we make choices. We overlook war, famine, lack of water, access to education, rape, genocide, a justice system that has a vested interest in incarceration and trapping minorities in a cycle of poverty, merciless slaughter of animals, toxic pollution and waste being pumped into every available crevasse of our exhausted planet... We spend our money on countless selfish vanity projects, while we watch people suffer. Does that make you bad person? I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. I pick and chose where I focus my empathy. Children are foaming from the mouth and dying in their parents arms and I go to brunch. What do we do when everything feels to big for you to help. How can we live meaningful lives full of all life has to offer while taking care of those around us who weren't so lucky? I have no answers. I feel powerless. But the onl

Confused about what's really happening at Standing Rock? Lets get the facts: Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is a pipe that is supposed to carry 570,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the Dakotas to Illinois. On July 27, 2016, The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for violating the National Historic Preservation Act when the agency issued final permits for a massive crude oil pipeline stretching from North Dakota to Illinois. This complaint asserts that the Corps violated multiple environmental and historic preservation statutes, focusing on the decision to reroute the pipeline from Bismarck, North Dakota to the doorstep of the Standing Rock reservation without adequate environmental analysis. The Dakota Access Pipeline project, also known as Bakken Oil Pipeline, would extend 1,168 miles across North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, crossing through communities, farms, tribal land, sensitive natural areas and wildlife habitat. The pipeline would carr

It's Saturday January 21, 7 am. After spending 24 hours deeply entrenched in enemy territory, sounded by giant trump letters and scattered blobs of amorphous humans covered in red make America Great Again hats (only 19.95 for a limited time only, but wait theres more!) clawing my eyes out trying to talk sense into glassy eyed humans who had all drank Trumps orange cool aid.... I was about ready to Madame Butterfly my innards....HOWEVER The next morning THANK GOD I am woken up by my over caffinated mother and 15 of her pink headed pals getting their chants together in my kitchen. We started early, we had signs, we had snacks, we had clear plastic back packs, hand sanitizer, fully stocked metro cards and a lot of attitude. THE MARCH WAS MADNESS. Pink headed women swarmed the streets, shut down the subways, and overwhelmed all means of transport. Millions of women, mad, proud, sad, and reinvigorated to fight against our waking nightmare MR TRUMP. This march I believe, was about finding the strength to fight the

January 20th 2017...Day 1 of 1300.....the day Lord Voldermorts reign of terror began! What a day it was, the sky was smothered in gray clouds, the air was thick with whatever the opposite of hope is, giant military Hum Vees were parked all over with pods of nervous looking Army guys milling around. Helicopters hovered menacingly, circling the sky, their blades adding to the symphony of fear playing on repeat throughout downtown. Sirens were going off in every direction and it generally felt like we were waiting for god to set the whole city on fire ala Sodom and Gomorrah. I was raised on George Clinton, Gogo and Ben's Chili Bowl. Politics has always been in my blood. I have been to every inauguration possible since my birth. From the moment I got off the train at Union Station, I knew I was entering enemy territory. Mr potato shaped humans, with interchangeable bland wonder bread features were milling around, all topped off with that one glowing red beacon, the "Make America Great Again," hat. I must tell you

I keep waking up in the morning and for a brief second everything is fine, the sun has risen the day has begun, and then I REMEMBER. I don't even have words. The only thing i can do is record peoples stories and fears and hopes and pray to gods i don't believe in that everything is going to be ok. I can't sleep. WHAT THE FUCK GUYS

I have a giant black hole growing inside my body and this election has helped it zero percent. No matter what happens, we are divided, the scum of the dark recesses from all over this great nation have crawled out of their bomb shelters holding their semi automatic riffles, embolden by the joker smile of an Orwellian megalomaniac who has allowed bigotry, xenophobia and racism to squirm out of the rug it's been hiding under and we are left holding our dicks in our hands looking like the biggest fucking joke country of all time. It's embarrassing. The time is now, there is no choice but to start to heal ourselves and then our immediate communities with unending amounts of pure love and hope that we can band together once again and try to fix this bleeding broken country. Good luck tonight. May the best woman win.

I was alone day 5 at the burn, walking around looking for trouble and as always, trouble found me. In the form of a wonderfully tweaktastic pro burner who was actively trying to vacuum up playa dust into a vintage Hoover I'm pretty sure Mr. Belvadere owned. It looked simply kooky. It's always these kind of small moments of improv comedy, that bring me back to that insane asylum every year despite my better judgement. His bag would get full every other minute, he would then empty it into a large garbage can and kept plugging away at the worlds most useless task. Looking at him I literally thought perhaps he had been cursed by the Greek Gods, and had been sent to clean the unclean able forever. #Purgatory Anyhow he was a swell firecracker full of stories and laughter and I loved him. Don't forget kids, it's almost my favorite weekend of the year. Zoe's rules for Halloween: 1. Always take candy from strangers 2. Say Yes. 3. Sleep is for quitters. 4. Safety Last HAVE FUN KIDDIES!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE Music: Phantogra

Host warning - One of these stories is gross. Really truely stomach curdling gross. However, burning man is GROSS. Don't believe the Instagram filters. It's not all Victoria Secret models in custom feather mohawks and thigh high moon boots. 80 percent of burners are normal artists, west coast hippies, who save all year for the opportunity, old party professionals, astrologers, sex freaks, engineers, lost souls, comedians, shamans, rabble rousers, homeless festival kids, who rely on the kindness and donations of the rest of the community and a whole gaggle of bro burners who heard that burning man is fun and show up with zero clue about how to comport themselves in this martian environment. Really crazy things happen there, every second. Strange things, scary things, wonderful things, sexy things, disgusting things. You can have moments where you get down on your knees and pray to the playa gods to take pity on you for you cannot take any more. Your body cracks, your mind shrivels, your skin splits, and yet yo

It's hard to explain what happens to your brain the first time you see the playa, or the flat deep expanse of land where the art cars roam and spit fire into the sky and the deep dark LED light installations dance beneath the stars. God forbid you thought it was a good idea to eat hallucinogens because it's possible your brain can just give up and walk away in confusion. It's bonkers, bananas, wild, beautiful awe inspiring and has the capability of reducing all your bones to Bisquick batter. Every year it just about blows my mind to little pieces. Anyway every year this is my FAVORITE art car. A big giant mean sci fi all metal octopus that screams fire from every angle. It's loud and big and mean and fucking MESMERIZING. Finally finally finally I was able to get the creator Duane Flatmo, a literal leaving genius to talk to me about how where when and why of his big bad baby. As burning man moves and breathes and changes, one thing will remain constant. There are inventors, scientists and artists holding down