Slab City frees mind at a cost

Living in Slab City is free, like boondocking, in both senses. But like boondocking, it doesn’t quite fit in with regular society. The normal expectations and rules don’t apply here. Perhaps that is why we nomads all come to visit The Slabs at some point; there is an attraction to a kindred spirit lifestyle.  As I mentioned in my last post, while I was at Bombay Beach, I took the Grom motorcycle over to Slab City for a little tour. Actually, I visited The Slabs a second time hitching a ride with friends a couple of days later. So, I have a couple of perspectives to use writing about this much visited “last free place” in America. Read on to to be perspectivized!

Propane tank fence

I had a great day for a motorcycle ride along the Salton Sea. The highway is quiet, only the occasional vehicle passed me at my ‘leisurely’ 55mph.  Seeing the Salton Sea on my right and the desert to my left turned into irrigated agriculture on the right as I neared Niland, the closest town with any services to Slab. I drove into Slab, not really with much surprise, other than the area is so big. The size of the area made the Grom a great way to explore Slab City, as compared to walking.  Some of you more timid types might find walking around a “town” with some pretty rough looking characters intimidating. But really, the issue is it would just take a long time to walk through everything when driving will do just fine. You can’t just walk in and explore anything – you can and should assume that everything is inhabited, no matter how squalid looking. Stick to the stuff that is obviously signed for the public. The tiny Grom made me look like I was a local just out for a put-put, although I looked a little too ‘city slicker’ for a native by the local standards I’m sure. At least I wasn’t one of the RVs touring through lumbering along the rough streets.

Welcome sign

Coming into The Slab, you can’t help but notice Salvation Mountain. It looks like something Disney would design from a distance with the bright colors – but a little too over the top in its clash of colors. The mountain is a religious monument, created to bring the word of god to others. I much prefer it to Sunday morning proselytizing at my door.

About half of the mountain, and I’m back a ways.

The one thing pictures do not convey is the size of this thing. It is much bigger than I expected. Leonard Knight did this all himself over almost 30 years of work, now that is dedication to spreading the word in a unique way. Even the agnostic I am can respect that.

Hopefully open again after repairs

A docent was there the second time I was there, who was a fountain of knowledge about the monument. I had seen some areas that had holes and  straw sticking out – the original mountain was partly built on straw bails. The larger indoor area was closed to visitors. It turns out the mountain is under constant repair. There are sections in danger of collapse, so the indoor area is closed, and you can’t walk on most of the mountain itself at the moment. They are letting people walk all over the base of the mountain right now, in the hopes that the foot traffic will scuff some of the paint off – it all has to go for a refresh of that area. The desert is harsh – without constant maintenance the sight would be only bits of paint sticking out in a dusty desert by now. I made sure to throw a few bucks in the official donation box. Just make sure you only donate there. Evidently, scammers will walk around on busy days asking for upkeep donations that only go to upkeep themselves.

Some random junk

Both during my Grom ride and when we toured through as a group by car, we drove some of the random streets of Slab. I have to say, I think Bombay Beach is more interesting overall. Slab is too much junk and shabby dwellings, not enough art. I motorcycled down the canal road past the library, expecting to see more proper Slab, but as the area faded out into random junk piles, I realized I’d been through what there was. I’ve heard that there have been more fires at Slab City – there certainly were a fair number of burned out remains scattered about. This is what anarchy looks like, scattered piles of junk and burned wrecks, even with occasional attempts to clean up things. Now, to be fair, we were there past the main winter dweller season – the place had already cleared out of a lot of the snow birds. So perhaps it feels a bit more lively in the middle of winter.

Back row of The Range

On our way to East Jesus, if you are coming in on the main street, you will pass “The Range”, the (in?)famous music venue that serves as the main live entertainment source at Slab. I have to say, I’d sit on the wooden benches and give the couches a wide berth – I expect bed bugs. But who knows – the summer heat might just sterilize everything out here in the desert! If I stayed in the area, I would definitely have to check out The Range on at least one evening to see what the vibe is like. I might even find I like some of the music, you never know!

I read the sign. I’m an ATV, sorta.

On the way to East Jesus

The other big art exhibit you need to see when visiting Slab City is East Jesus. It is the only thing you may have to hunt for: come in the main road, hang a left at the T intersection, hang another left not far down, just as you feel you’ll leave Slab if you don’t turn left now. You’ll know you’ve hit East Jesus more by the sudden concentration of art in all the junk around you. There are signs, read them and you’ll find the entrance no problem. Else, you might just end up wandering the parking area thinking that East Jesus wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I was amused they had ATV parking, a thing that has some demand out in the desert. The Desert Bar also had ATV parking. You get a lot of ATVs out here, many even street legal.

Most of the left side of the TV wall

My one ‘must see’ item out of East Jesus was the TV Wall, a simple exhibit that is just a bunch of old TVs with the screen painted white and some saying / picture added in bold red paint. I was struck by this installation the first time I saw it (on TV of sorts, today’s TV being the computer screen). TV is a huge influence on our lives – this installation speaks volumes on how many different ways it influences us, even if it is just to suck whatever motivation we have left at the end of the day to do anything. “Vegging” in front of the TV is a term specifically because whatever is left of your brain has been sucked into TV for the night leaving a vegetable sitting in front of it.

TV nuggets of something

What comes out the next day is seeded with whatever that darn TV planted in your head last night while parked in front of it. It told you what to think, what gossip to share at the coffee counter, what joke got the most laughs before shutting down for the night. It didn’t teach you how to think though. I’m not immune to TV, but at least I yell back at it and change the channel (click away from the page) if it is being particularly stupid at the moment.

Car doll line

East Jesus isn’t that big, but it seems huge. That’s because you step five paces and are confronted by something new. Step five paces another direction and something new presents itself. Turn around and there is something you missed in your last five paces. The area is crammed with stuff. One person’s junk, another person’s art – you be the judge. But it means you end up taking a lot of pictures if you are trying to document everything. Hell, even if you are just trying to get a good sample of everything you’ll take a lot of photographs. At least visiting a second time I had more sun to get a few better pictures. All that being said, I’ll just continue with a bunch of pictures of my very partial documenting of East Jesus.

At least I knew where my $ were going	Donation Chimp
Boxes and keys	Horse driver
Plane at the entrance	Everyone welcome
Dolphin Conspiracies
Circuit City	America fallen
Fishing past	Tire entry
Be the trash art…	…you wish to see
Bottle wall

I posted a bunch more East Jesus pictures in an album on my Flickr account if you want to see more art madness. I should point out that East Jesus (and Slab in general) isn’t exactly child friendly. In fact, I’d say it’s child hostile. There are sharp pointy things, trippy things, bad words and mature themes. If your child is easily injured or easily brain damaged by some adult ideas, you might want to not bring them. Certainly don’t let them free roam here.

Skate Park “sign”

Skate Park Ramps

I saw some other random bits of Slab, like the internet cafe (Slab style: Wi-Fi and a coffee pot). There was the Skate Park, the former military complex’s pool done up with some paint and ramps. Speaking of kids, I ran into a couple that were living there with their parents. The one little boy had no problem talking to strangers, asking if he could use my camera. I explained to him it was an ‘adult’ camera, which might have not been such a convincing reason considering the exposure to adult ideas he’s likely getting around there. Beats letting them surf the internet unsupervised though!

Pool wall now Skate Park Wall

Sagging library shelves

The library was pretty cool. It’s a bit chaotic, like everything else in Slab. It is pretty much like one of those book boxes you find on some city corners, just a lot bigger. It’s a bring a book, take a book type of system. They have lots though it was too bad I couldn’t browse the Sci-Fi section as the proprietor was in the middle of reorganizing it so it was just a literal pile of books in front of him at that moment. But the library even has an outdoor reading area, so grab a coffee from the Internet cafe up the way, and come down to the library to hang out with a book, Slab style.

Phone history

So what are my final thoughts on Slab City? Sure, it’s free to stay there, but you get what you pay for. So, it is a good deal as there is a community of sorts (summer small, winter large), there are some amenities, and the people are mostly harmless. But expect to fry in the summer and have your digs burned down if you’re an asshole. Why do you think there are so many burned remains here? There are rules here too, just unwritten, and even the government reaches in here in small ways, like police patrols. Perhaps it is the best example of a  working anarchy, at least in a partial sense.

Random sign down one of the random streets

While the government of various levels allows Slab City to exist, it lives in the grey zone like nomad life. It’s the same problem for the government – you are not tracked sufficiently here to be controlled. Of course, that lack of tracking is exactly why some people are here, especially the year round people. I suspect as long as Slab City can run under the radar of not causing too many problems for the tax paying and voting people living around it, it will continue on. The location in the middle of the desert, away a couple of miles from the nearest town keeps it out of sight, out of mind.

Organized religion has penetrated the anarchy

Slab only exists as a zit on the skin of society. It would dry up and blow away if the civilization around it went away. People here like to think they’re independent, but for the grocery store run they do every week. Slab City isn’t a solution to any problems that I can think of, but it is a band-aid for some at least.