- Tonight me and a couple of my kids Rachel and Hade are spending
the night in Slab City, which is the last lawless
city in the whole country. (whirring helicopter) I'd heard rumors about Slab City, but I had to see it for myself. It was nothing like what I expected. In 1942, when the Southern
California desert, Marine training base camp
Dunlap was commissioned. After World War II the
buildings were removed, leaving only the slabs, thus
its nickname, Slab City. With no electricity, no water no services and no rules. It's now considered, the
last lawless town in America. I was talking to someone this morning and they said they find bodies in here. The residents of Slab
City all have stories. We came to hear them. (gentle music) Hera at the entrance we
have Salvation Mountain and our project created by
a guy named Leonard Knight, made out of tires, adobe bricks dirt, and thousands of gallons of paint. We're gonna check this
out quick and see if we, (dramatic music) survive the night. Do you think we'll make it? - I sure hope so. (gentle music) - [Man] This is where I'd keep you guys if you get outta hand. We're literally walking on painted dirt and there's actually a society
of, I think nine people that maintain it and people donate paint, to keep this thing going. - [Ron] It's Leonard
Knight's work of love. He loved God a lot and
it made him super happy. So he built this mountain so everybody could
enjoy in that happiness. - It says no entry guys. You wanna go in anyway? But we can go in here. Let's see. (happy upbeat music) - [Ron] I've lived here
for over six years. (bright music) (gentle music) - I was a little apprehensive
as we approached Slab City. I didn't know where we
could spend the night, or if we'd be safe. Near the entrance is the Wranglers Roost, a little cafe and community center, where we met a really down
to earth guy named Ken. Is there anywhere where it
would be like totally safe, to leave my RV? - [Man] Right here in front of our fence. - [Woman] Awesome.
- And I can leave it here for the night? - Yes, absolutely. - [Woman] Thank you so much. - Yes you're most welcome. Came from San Diego. This was a free living
community, Slab City, since actually 59. Snowbirds have been coming
out here, camping forever and it ended up turning into people who had disabilities, or low income and wasn't
able to get anywhere and it become a community of such. So, that's basically
how I ended up out here. August of 2019, we decided
to open this place up, because there were a lot of
people dying of heat stroke and heat exhaustion. I decided to have a little food, hot dogs and burgers on the side. My burgers ended up being real good. - Ken, hooked us up
with custom half pound, half pound? Custom, half pound hamburgers. Let's see. (gentle music) Dang. - I've kept the people
alive out here and happy. In most places it can be safe. Don't leave anything sitting outside. I would stay along the road and even though we're here by The Range. (upbeat music) - This is The Range, builder
Bill owns this place. They have live shows every Saturday night, it's Sunday. We just missed it. (upbeat music) The next time you're
passing through Slab City, make sure you say hi to
the very amicable resident acupuncturist, sex therapist and inventor, Doc Spence - Flying machine I'm making right there. That will duplicate
what a dragon fly does. - [Man] You think it'll fly? - Yeah, of course it will. - [Man] You won't be disappointed. - Leonardo and I are working on it. I've been coming here
since I was six years old. I just like it. There's no rent. There's no mortgage, no property taxes. And there's no building restrictions. Look at that. The Tower of Enlightenment and that's where we go to meditate. Do you know if I tried to build that in.. - [Man] LA? - How many civil engineers
I would've had to do? I'm building this sculpture, the Bird of Man's Rising Consciousness. It'll be tilted towards the Pacific Ocean, as if it was going to
circumnavigate the planet and raise the consciousness
of the whole planet. And I'm gonna make up a sign. It says "The path to enlightenment
starts with forgiveness. "Who can I forgive today?" (upbeat music) I built a swimming pool. This is the angel of man's better nature. Don't forget Tiger. She protects the place. She goes after the big
dogs that come in here and wanna pee in the garden. I'm working on this magnetic
perpetual motion machine. I've been a student of physics since I was old enough to fall. (chuckling) I've written two books, one on physics, one on chemistry. If we could get this to work we will not need solar, or wind. And then we make one big
enough the size refrigerator put it in the garage and
it'll power the whole house. - [Man] So you believe it's possible, perpetual motion with magnets? - Yeah. It's just like the speed of light. I don't believe that the
universe will have put a block where we can't go fast enough,
to get to all the other planets in the universe. And the next thing I
invented is the hernal, 'cause I have so many
girls that come here. That's a multimillion dollar idea. (gentle upbeat music) - So far it's been
surprisingly fun and awesome and people, like everybody's nice. We're parked right here
in front of Ken's place. We've been hassled by zero people. Nobody's even out right now at this hour, at 10 o'clock at night. And it's just, it's kind of cool. There's some fire's burning. It's actually peaceful and surreal. ♪ Do ya like the way you love ♪ After a glorious night's
sleep in front of Ken's place, we went in search of East Jesus. Oblivious tourists, with
no sense of direction, we stumbled into John's
art gallery instead. He came out to greet us
with a smile on his face and when I pulled out the camera, he said, "Nah, I'm not here to be famous, man. "I just want to connect with people". Everyone we bumped into
was a pleasant surprise and John was no exception. He spent most of his
life as a tattoo artist and for the past few years, has been saving at his day job to pursue art full-time in Slab City,
during the winters and spring. He shared that a majority
of the population here is seasonal, with a
couple thousand moving in, when it's cool and out
when temperature's rise. An average summer hosts only
a couple hundred residents. One of the things John
said he loves the most about Slab City is the lack of judgment. Everyone's different and everyone fits in. There's no pretense, or
expectations of anyone to be someone they're not. ♪ To emphasize ♪ Right now, we're taking the
back roads to East Jesus. Last night, they were kind of saying, "Nah, it's pretty safe". And then I was talking to Ken today and he was like, "Yeah,
there was a murder here "two nights ago and they don't really know "where the body is". There's a hot springs
here about 70 degrees, according to I think a local. - [Mike] Mike. - According to Mike, it's about 70 and I heard some things, maybe you know too Mike, but I was talking to someone this morning and they said they find bodies in here. They found 'em several times. Is that true? - [Mike] Just one. - You come here often? - [Mike] Yes I do. ♪ There's a whisper of the servant ♪ ♪ I can hear it calling me ♪ ♪ There are secrets in the darkness ♪ ♪ There's a light beyond our reach ♪ - Greetings and welcome to East Jesus. I am your mediocre half-assed tour guide I don't give tours. This is a sheltered workshop
for the work ethic impaired. And we have two rules. One, everything is touchable. Two, if you touch it and it breaks, blame it on someone else. If that doesn't work,
blame it on the artist. Say the artist used shoddy material and or, workmanship when they built it, or it wouldn't have broke
when you touched it. ♪ What I sense in you ♪ ♪ Is a mystery ♪ ♪ I will be on ♪ ♪ What I do eyes can see ♪ ♪ Could be art ♪ ♪ It's a mystery ♪ Insecurity is the illusion that this is only happening to you. ♪ It's a mystery ♪ (wind howling) (upbeat music) ♪ Gonna do what I do ♪ - My name's Merit. I came out here again, eight months ago just because I don't get
along with a lot of society. I mean, a lot of is just kind
of surface level judgment. I really got tired working
in factories and stuff, just to pay for my land, or pay for rent. I like that I can just
kinda walk down the street, smoke weed and do
basically whatever I want. Here, you don't have to spend every dollar just to get a beer, or to go see a live show,
or to hang out with people. It's almost communistic in a way. There's still capitalism. You have to have hustles out here, like two tents and the bikes. These bike tours go great it seems. - [Man] Come to the skate park
and you can rent those bikes? - Yes. - [Man] And the skate park? - This is just a hangout area for people. When I got here, it's
actually really dirty. Now, it's really cleaned up. Handlebar throughout time, it morphed into a whole structure whereas we didn't have a structure before, and we were just kind
of doing a soup kitchen. Now we have a few things. You do donations. You can get things in return, like sodas and stuff. It's more like a centralized hangout spot. ♪ Get to halve the rules ♪ ♪ Get to halve the rules ♪ (upbeat music) - Hi, my name is Peter Passalacqua. I'm an artist in Slab City, California. I'm making some minister
Salvation Mountains and I'm the proprietor
of the Rainbow Camp. Here's the living room. Diane is making art. (dog barking) Hey Davey. It's how we stay cool in the summertime. This is heaven. I got a king size canopy bed, with the waterfall next to
it, surrounded by aloe plants. And this is also my art gallery. If you noticed I got
a 10 foot tall window, that let's in natural light. Allow me to walk you into
the kitchen really quick. My stove. - [Man] How long you been here? - Just a little bit more than three years. - [Man] What brought you here? - I moved out here from Portland, Oregon, to pursue art full-time. I made this out of adobe I read a book.
- No way. - On how to make adobe pizza oven. Everything here is not only
practical, but it's also art. It's like a bed and breakfast over here. Sometimes people will come
and stay the night, you know? This is my tartise. I get a lot of guests out here, but this is my restroom. I modeled this bathroom after
a Victoria Secret store. - Slab City turned out to be a community full of kind and accepting
people, in search of freedom. (indistinct) a little bit
greener than Slab City. Check out that video right there. We can't wait to share
our adventures with you.
