The ‘city’ is made up of eccentric artists who try to live separately from the rest of the US and exist on a makeshift economy consisting of cash, water and weed
Slab City is nestled in the southeastern pocket of California’s Sonoran Desert, just 45 miles of the Mexican border.
Referred to by its residents as “the last free place in America”, the bizarre lawless stretch of land is densely populated by drug addicts, eccentrics, army veterans and hippies. Or as ‘Wizard’, the man who greets all who enter Slab City, puts it: “Everyone is 100% certifiably insane. And I mean that from a clinical perspective.”
Speaking to SPIN, Wizard added: “This is what happens when you let mentally ill people build their own playground in the desert.”
Slab City is defined as an anarcho-republic, a community of free-thinkers who seemingly operate under their own rules.
The buildings, for the most part, resemble discarded junk sculptures made of old tires, post-apocalyptic vehicles with mannequin legs and doll houses promoting conspiracy theories about Stalin’s relationship to dolphins.
Alongside these eccentric structures, people exist with no concept of private land ownership and generally tend to employ an “informal economy” based on cash, water and weed.
SPIN’s reporter notably encountered a roving group of actor/musicians called Jester Jizz, one of whose songs revolves around the catchy refrain: “Semen quality has declined by 60% since 1980 [repeat x4].”
Describing Jester Jizz’s onstage get-up, SPIN’s Jonah Gercke said: “Everyone in Jester Jizz wears clown paint and flowing robes. They play ethereal music from a boombox and perform free verse that ruminates on our cosmic origins, the chicken-or-egg question, and the decline of semen quality since 1980.”
Source: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/us-news/town-governed-wizard-everyone-100-34399799
