Camping at Slab City for New Year's Eve

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] it wonder has he here camping at a place called slab city I'm actually right outside slab city and this sort of barren godforsaken corner of extreme southeastern California if you look on a map and you go way down almost to the Mexican border and near Arizona there's this kind of corner of California that nobody wants anything to do it because it's really arid really dry and it smells kind of funky because of this weird Lake that's down here called the Salton Sea and that's a whole nother story I'll try to do a video about that while I'm down here but right outside the Salton Sea there's this ruins of an old Marine Corps Base I think it was a Marine base back in World War two and it's been demolished but the concrete slab foundations are left and nobody wants to live down here I don't even think anyone wants the land so it's just become a sort of unofficial squatters paradise and there's probably hundreds of people squatting here it's in some cases they've been squatting here for decades decades living for free in California can you imagine I mean just look at this friggin place all these bombed out old trailers are these these are people's houses they're living yeah it's really interesting just goes to show that you really don't need as much as you think you do to live and of course like always happens a bunch of artists end up coming down here to and making I mean there is all kinds of kooky art down here and I'll show you more of that as the weekend goes on but my group of friends and I are camped about the Sun right there where the Sun is unfortunately there's a group of cars and trailers and stuff my friends and I decided to spend New Year's Eve out here because we heard there's a big party in Slab City they have kind of like a main stage in the middle of town and they're gonna have a huge party on New Year's Eve and then we also heard that up here up by the tanks this is old water tanks up on the hill that have really cool graffiti all over them they also told us they're having a party in New Year's even it's gonna be real loud so be warned and you're invited and we said alright cuz we're pretty loud too so we just got in we just set up our camp cuz I have a sunset drink and go for a little walk and look around this weird art installation let's check it out there is a lot of pre-existing trash out at celeb city which is the main thing I don't like about it people dump all kinds of crap out here but that's what's cool about these artists is they came through and took all the crap that people have dumped and made art out of it right I mean I guess art is a subjective term but I don't know this beats looking at a junk pile to me wow look at this it was like an old VW Beetle but then there's like oh you know maybe it's just a dune buggy holy cow I don't know what that was but it's all painted green now that's really cool holy moly I love it and then look at the paint job on this car I mean they spent a lot of time on this one it's not just junk stuck in the dirt actually some care went into it that's really neat oh look the Sun kind of went down so you can see my camp better now I better walk back to camp because I need to do a few things while it's still light out get situated okay the next morning we survived our night camping had a really nice night I can't fire some drinks I'll smoke a room and then we all piled into my friend's Suzuki Samurai and what road in this lab city they have a look around okay look here's kind of like an official welcoming sign as you drive in this lab city down the highway there is where most of the people squat and live and where most the bigger infrastructure is like this the range which is kind of like the nightclub or the stage the library and the internet cafe all that stuff is down that way but look at this cool kind of welcoming kiosk this kiosk is actually a perfect representation like this place is a mix of really cool people and really sketchy people so look they've got a juggling class they got horrid Oracle trust I'll teach you how to grow your own vegetables out here but then somebody wrote on here I rape for free so that's kind of representative of what you're what you're gonna get at this place look inside this creepy kiosk let's see just crazy stickers and graffiti I don't know how many people peed in here pooped in here it's disgusting look at that I mean I'm showing you this because I want you to know what this place is like there's no toilets okay well here's some information in here let's see no like they've had an improv comedy troupe Oh fun every Thursday at the Oasis Club look there's a lost dog someone's trying to find out here oh look there was even a free Christmas dinner oh there's a church out here and they did that that is so cool and then like here's kind of like a message park there's a lot of people who are traveling or Runaways end up here so like here I miss you so much I've been worried but I know you like to disappear I've just got a try extra hard to find you and I will Wow hopefully they found each other oh look here's the sanctuary living in harmony restoring bones see there are a lot of really cool people out here that are doing nice things it's not all tweakers and allen keys like you see on TV look here's supposedly what it says for the motto welcome to slab city where the only rule is respect one another and dogs and earth and all that is anyways our first stop on our little tour was the range it's kind of like this main stage area I'll give you guys a little tour of it they do I guess every Saturday they have a big open mic night we're all kind of performers come up and play music must be really cool I've never been here on a Saturday but tomorrow's New Year's Eve and there's supposed to be a big shindig tomorrow so maybe I'll finally find out here's the sign here when you first come in insane Wayne Smith r.i.p well he must have been a guy who lived here and helped build this didn't have much money but he had lots of class if you didn't like his style then you could kiss his born question mark died September 7th oh seven wow what a cool memorial to him so it's basically just a big stage area that it's built on one of these concrete slab foundations that I was talking about from the old Marine base but look at this they've actually put in rows and rows of benches somebody built all these Wow that's interesting last time I was here it was just a bunch of these funky old desk chairs and random couches and stuff any kind of chair and I mean any kind of chair but it looks like since then someone has come in and built all these benches pretty nice and then there's still some of the old couches and stuff for the front row seats but this is really nice and it's decorated for oh look there's like a bar or I guess we can go get a drink how this is circle here's the stage where you get up and perform like share your challenge make donations to help them keep up the plays which is cool I'll definitely drop a couple bucks in there for them just decide the range that's the name of the performance venue pretty cool look at this hole but wouldn't get her how cool decorations and then if you're up on stage this is what you look out at there's your adoring audience and all these people just sort of squatting out here in the background okay that range was pretty cool and we got back in the sámi and we rode around a little bit farther an hour at this place called East Jesus it's kind of a well known Enclave here where a bunch of artists live and have really created some really intense art really cool stuff it kind of has a Burning Man vibe to it but there's some really neat stuff and we're gonna walk around and check it out how cool is this wall it's made out of the spools like for cable they painted them all purple and then they've most day then with all this mirror beautifully done I mean that was a lot of work look at all this yeah really somebody spent a lot of time doing that you can see here he's working on he's got all the mirror broken up and the liquid nails out ready to glue some more on there this cool little trailer it's amazing paint job wow look here this is what people say about where we are slab city no-rules home of the brave' do this I'm down with desert power hello safe space area 1 Wow it's not locked but I'm not sure people actually live in these things so I don't want to just go wandering into someone's house Wow look at this airplane holy cow got an entire airplane parked here at school and won 6-0 RL or o RL Wow look at that point it's in pretty good shape ok you guys there's so much our ear that I can't really show everything air this video will be like a year long but look how beautiful these art cars are I mean this thing is I don't even know what the base vehicle is some kind of a station wagon and it's a monster now or like one of those Chinese New Year dragons how freaking cool is that and I think the amount of detail look at this this is all beaded individually beaded that took a lot of time ok wow this apparently was the first piece of art at East Jesus the guy who have made this VW bus guy named Charlie he kind of founded this East Jesus call me and compound whatever it's not really a communist just a bunch of people living out here off the grid making crazy art but anyways this was his VW bus that he decorated and he would make chocolate martinis and hand them out at Burning Man that was his deal man he he died young I'll show there's a shrine dedicated to him over here and he's all like 46 when he died but I mean look at the detail on this look at all these shotgun shells how cool is this all just glued onto this old VW best corks look at all these crucifixes I mean it's so the pattern is perfect he really really did a nice job designing this it's not just haphazard Wow cinnabar charm I think that was the name of the car like yep okay I am NOT a religious person but if I was this right here is who I were to worship Our Lady of lost souls and beautiful freaks I wouldn't say that I'm a lost soul but definitely a freak okay this is one of the most well-known art pieces out here it's this giant wall of old televisions that they've collected and written political slogans on in C up top this of blank ones are waiting for ideas so look at this all old TVs and I really do believe like some of this is just you know slogans that I can't really you know like crap is entertainment I mean that's kind of true of it's not really saying anything it speaks to me but there's a few things here that I think really are cool like there's one over here look at this you need more stuff this is what watching TV literally tells you to buy buy buy a bunch of crap that you don't need and then they promote a standard of beauty that everyone's supposed to aspire to that sometimes it really doesn't make any sense a tale of insecurity we trust it's so true they entire fortunes are founded on milking people's insecurities and I like this white people yelling at each other yeah that's a good one better living through sedentary obedience yeah I don't I mean I have a TV at my house but it doesn't work I mean I'll ever watch TV that being said I do spend a lot of time watching YouTube and stuff online but I feel like you have more of a choice in that you can just kind of switch around out will TV is so passive you're just sitting there and look they've got little chairs lined up here so you can sit here and watch it and just get brainwashed basically there's remote controls just you're just getting brainwashed [ __ ] all this crap okay just walking around East Jesus back through that door there is where the people actually live out here so that's not open to the public unfortunately you can't go back there but it's just yeah people live out here for free remember you can just live out here for free and they've built it up really nice you can see back there they've even got solar panels and they're building some kind of a actual structure but for now they're all just kind of living in trailers and whatnot back there but they spend their days making this really cool art like look at this freaking tower thing as three stories tall and it's just covered in so much interesting detritus like there's just weird stuff everywhere here look at this this is all just junk junk that people have thrown away oh yeah if you really stop and think about I don't wanna sound like a hippie but people throw so much crazy crap away all this stuff was just thrown away at some point and it's been scavenged and repurposed as creepy art really really interesting I mean motor vehicle parts shotgun shells old store mannequins it's just intense I mean like I said there's so much stuff here that I can't possibly show you guys all of it but give you an idea look at his little walnut attire it's kind of enclosing this section because this is kind of part of slab city but it's like it's a little enclave off to the side so they keep it separate look at this robot okay another thing you might notice here is there's a lot of old plastic ducks let's guys stuck everywhere whoever did this and you'll see the sign here kind of explains it eat pray put birds on things that's his thing you did love putting birds into art yeah I just got a hot tip there's something cool on this side oh wow there sure is look on this side of this tower I mean this was all made out of junk Gavan junk isn't that intense look at this guy all spray-painted silver is coming out of this massive technology breaking through well that is pretty frickin cool okay Wow look at this Cadillac this is amazing it's got wings holy moly I love this paint job look at this thing it's got these chairs up top oh my god Lee they're more like Thrones than chairs it's weird air doesn't paint job I love it but you know the actual interior of the caddy is still pretty cherry nice car Wow look at these fins Oh so this is clearly some kind of an art car from Burning Man because it's got a staircase welded on the back so you can climb on up oh yeah it it even says something about Black Rock City Nevada my bumper been to Burning Man like much of this stuff I'd guess okay now just across the desert from where we were camping I saw it in the background earlier is this crazy huge kind of like folk art monument called Salvation Mountain check this out so this whole thing was built by this guy who used to live out here named Leonard I remember his last name but he lived out here and this was his life's work he built this mountain out of hay bales covered in Adobe and then I painted it brightly colored like that and because it's so friggin hot and sunny out here all year the Sun bleaches the colors out pretty fast so I think he has to his crew has to touch it up constantly to keep it bright and shiny so there's something like 300 that was in gallons of paint that went into this 300 that was in gallons of paint that's a lot of paint I'm not a religious person but I have to admire something like this like that is cool she passed away mmm five or six years ago but I was lucky I came here for the first time back in Oh nine when he was still alive and he gave us a tour he just seemed like such a sweet man just sweet and just nice so let's check out his work look at this this is all made out of bales of hay covered in Adobe and paint I mean it might not look like much to you but I've been to this kind of stuff man and I anybody who spends this amount of time and effort on something it's really cool in my book look inside how cool this is look is there even a little plaque the folk art Society of America has designated this as a national whole card say yeah I agree I mean look at which time went into all this look at this goes up up up up up up this is amazing I feel like when I came here the first time there wasn't all these warning signs you kind of climb around more places but you know it is things get popular all kind of people start coming next thing you know you've got a liability on your hands that's cool it's a picture of it what it looks like there's cool creepy windows feels like we're inside the Yellow Submarine you can see there how it's constructed out of hay head mud it's very solid it's very cool in here relative to how it was outside so might even stay cool in this summer a little bit look at this I was like this crazy Wonderland we're just inside the side of that mountain that you just saw it's like Alice in the Wonderland we went down the rabbit hole I like all these little nooks and crannies look at this one it almost looks like an old Indian cave in here oh look oh look it's the guy Christopher McCandless from into the wild oh you guys have ever seen that maybe it's the guy who travels around and then died in a bus in Alaska and a lot of people like to hate on him and Bagon and for being a spoiled rich kid but I think he was really cool and I have a feeling I would have gotten along with it I'm really well I mean could there be any cooler combo than Alexander Supertramp and wonder huh see super triumphant wonder huh see sounds like peanut butter and jelly to me that was his real name that he went by Alexander Supertramp Wow look inside this room holy cow because this little staircase built in holy cannoli so I'm actually oh well look there's the guy who built it Leonard day I think was named Steve just hop I don't know if you can really see that picture but he just was so sweet he just had a real sweetness to him and I just really like that in people I feel like sweetness is a really underrated quality like in our society you know people who are sweet and kind and gentle don't really get much respect it's the guy who's the toughest who's got the biggest truck and it's the loudest baby and that's fine but I like the sweet one guess you could say I have a sweet tooth okay now let's follow this yellow brick road up the side of the mountain you can climb all the way to the top where that cross is and that ought to give us a really good pano of the area look please stay on the yellow brick road I feel like I'm walking through friggin Yellow Submarine this is you can see well how it took three hundred thousand gallons of paint to do this cuz look how bright these colors are and it's blasting baking Sun here pretty much 365 days a year keep going up they make it really easy with this yellow brick road that you follow alright here we are at the top and that in the distance is more slab city is so many interesting people there yeah there's a lot of creepy strung out alcoholic meth type steal your shoes type people but that we met the most amazing people here so don't let all the talk scare you away when you definitely have your wits about you if you come out here but it's definitely worth it okay it's a couple days later after I shot that last bit of footage last night was New Year's Eve and we went to the range and there was an amazing band jamming and we all brought our maracas and our instruments and just I mean it was so much fun really a good party and then there was a little rave going on right outside by our camps and kids had driven out with DJ equipment and big speakers so we went to a little rave afterwards it was really fun great New Year's you set off some fireworks had some drinks it's a really good time but this is the first day of the New Year January 1st 2018 we decided to go out and explore a little bit more around Slab City right now we're checking up a pet cemetery there's a lot of man you can see here if you look around and the distance I'm not sure you can but there's RVs and shanties and trucks and vans and people living in all kinds of weird dwellings out here and if I had to guess I'd say there's probably a thousand people living out here and they you know a lot of dogs so there's probably a lot of buried dogs in this little pet cemetery we're checking out this lab city pet cemetery look here's the grave of pepper rope oh wow look at this in loving memory of my little guy Joe Jude autumn Wentworth 1977 - November 7th 1984 oh this pits and make sure it goes on for quite a way there's a lot of pet graves out here in this lonely desert and then look in the distance there you'll see some Dixie Stars and Bars flags flying you see a lot of that out here and I don't think that it's really so much of these are Southern sympathizers for racists I think they're just kind of rebel say we were talking about and we think it's I don't know it's more of a symbol of just being a rebel I mean I can identify with that sentiment but what's really interesting speaking of those rebel flags yeah this something's gonna be really bad but I don't know if you can see in the distance there on the hill there's these giant concrete I guess some kind of catchment basins or water tanks well there's this huge tank over by where we're camped that had really cool graffiti on it and we went in it the other night or evening and this couple lives in it it was they were the most interesting people I wish I could have shot video of it but it really wouldn't have been appropriate to do because first of all this couple that lives in this huge water tank that's probably mmm 30 feet across all concrete maybe three stories four stories high inside but it was all decorated he had this parachute draped across the top like creepy schwag hanging it was all gloomy and dark in there the at least weird skeleton skeletons and baby dolls and guns and knives and weird artwork hanging up all over the walls and then he had this weird throne that was made out of a helicopter ejection seat the guy who lived in there and he looked he was wearing a Metallica t-shirt with the sleeves cut off he kind of looked like a hard-ass he had a mohawk his girlfriend or partner that lived with him was you know she just kind of a nondescript but very pretty we're gonna have baseball hat pulled down like doing her thing they turned out to be the nicest people we spent probably an hour in their water tank which is their home they let us come in and chatted with us and they were kind of frosty at first I could borrow these people but the longer we talk to him the more we really liked them I mean they left there from Massachusetts from Boston they hitchhiked across the country to get here and they live here now they left Boston two years ago in a car but they decided before they even got out of Massachusetts they didn't want the car anymore they were out of Walmart somewhere in Massachusetts and they decided to just give the car to the first deserving family that went into the Walmart so they basically just stood outside this Walmart watching people go in and tell they saw like this poor kind of family with a busted-up old car drive into the parking lot the back window was all broken out and that was the family man it was a bad like a little baby or a little kid the wife was pregnant they just looked like the family so when that family came out of the Walmart the guy who lives in this water tank and his girlfriend said hey man you want our car we don't need it anymore and the guy thought it was a trick at first a scanner oh no no I don't have any money on me man no no we just want to give you the car man take it here's the keys here's the title gave their car away to some total strangers I'd never talked to those people again but they had a backpack of peace with all their worldly possessions they hiked and mostly hiked on foot across the entire country and ended up here in this crazy patch of desert living in a water tank covered in graffiti really interesting people okay well there's actually a hostel here on Airbnb if you go on Airbnb and look up slab City California for ten or twenty bucks a night you can stay at this hostel and the guy who runs it is amazing he just gave us a tour I didn't want to be rude and she because he lives there but he's got all these weird open air beds mattress or hammocks with little rooms made out of hay bales that you can rent a room in for the night he's got porta-potties and he's got a shower and a washing machine in the kitchen I think it's ten bucks a night to sleep in an open air bed and if you want to be inside one of the trailers it's 20 at night it's a great deal man all right actually I don't know how much it is to stay in one of the trailers it might be more than 20 it's on Airbnb you can look at some kind of home for abandoned teddy bears and my friend over there in the distance he had this old teddy bear he found on the highway on the way here and he brought it over here and gave it a home well let's go check it out look at this home for abandoned teddy bears there's my friends teddy he left it off and look at all these zippers and the story behind it that guy was just telling us he found all these teddy bears somewhere in Slab City from cleaning up you know old trailers people leave stuff behind he rescued all these teddy bears some of them were sent from fans around the world but most of them just found right here okay now check this out there's actually a full-service 24-hour library out here and it's really nice chickens okay it's the last sunset of my stay in Slab City first day of January 2018 to celebrate the beginning of the new year this is January first we're gonna have a sort of a ritual ceremony burn the past and you know we wrote down our intentions for the new year and I'll show you what I wrote down for mine we're gonna put these in a fire and send them out into the universe let me show you what my intentions are for next year okay my first intention for 2018 is to grow my YouTube channel and share my wonder with more people I try to do with my videos it's just share the amazing stuff in the world with as many people as possible and just let people know what kind of cool stuff is out there it's not about going to the most expensive hotel and the most trendy music festival above all there's stuff out here in the middle of a friggin desert okay so that's my first intention I also want to develop an understanding and tolerant patience and sense of peace I don't argue with anybody on Facebook about politics and religion and blah blah blah it kind of ties in with my third intention which is to be kind always and treat everyone with sincere respect I feel like this is the most important resolution of them all if we could only be kind kindness is my favorite quality and in 2018 I'm really gonna try to show more of it it's the one thing that I have plenty of to give away here's those having our creepy ceremony waving away all the bad spirits from 2017 bring it in nothing but the good ones we don't really believe in all this stuff that's kind of fun to do yeah all in good fun we just threw in offerings of fruit and salt honey sage look that's my sister's old office wherever when she used to have an office job corporate world bring your old outfit tensions rising into the universe all right celebrating the end of my wonderful New Year's weekend and slab city with some local grub here at the [ __ ] shot diner just a really cool little diner in the town of Milan great as you go in this lab city food is great the assadist fresh and the coffee just what I needed great weekend and I'll definitely be back [Laughter] you [Music]

Channel: Wonderhussy Adventures

Views: 227,720

Keywords: slab city, california tent city, east jesus, salvation mountain, niland ca, slab city new years eve, wonderhussy, wonder hussy

Id: 8QV0h7bRwtY

Length: 31min 18sec (1878 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2018