Slab City, California: Last Free Place in America? (Extraordinary Place Documentary) | Real Stories

[Music] [Music] so street job where are you baby you know they say it's the last free place in america and it is you know for people that live here year round people got places they can stay you know and they're safe you know [Music] we do have name streets we do have neighborhoods like a normal city but we're not paying land room we can never pay land rent here what do i need a city for to just live out here for free if palm springs and deadwood south dakota were to have an illegitimate child it would be slab city and that's deadwood south dakota of 1876 not today shrika [Music] [Music] where are you my name is robert lane i came down here two and a half years ago to visit my best friend and he wanted to trade his place for my truck after thinking about it for a day um i decided to stay so he took my truck and i got home i always start off with my hometown news even though i haven't been there in nearly three years it's nice to be able to know what's going on in other parts of the world and know that people are the same everywhere they all have the same worries and concerns that we do color of our skin doesn't mean [ __ ] [Music] you [ __ ] around with children or threaten the children you're gonna seem a dark side um i've even trained my dogs to protect the children around here last week somebody had every last possession they owned stolen or burned um it's what's known as slab justice he was he was a real [ __ ] he went to jail two weeks ago for threatening somebody and within 24 hours of him being in jail all of his stuff was stolen and burned to the ground nobody called the police when the fire was immediately set they waited till it was unextinguishable before calling the fire department that's how hated this person was so there is there are morals out here they're just different a lot of people have put a lot of taboo about it but it's just like any other neighborhood any other city any of that that you'd find here in the u.s as far as i'm i know where's that it sounds like it's [ __ ] it's the same thing to me man somebody took my [ __ ] travel bag i'm gonna beat the [ __ ] out of them where's my bag there's a [ __ ] black widow there don't be putting your goddamn hand down there grab your [ __ ] black widow's right there have you seen my green duffel bag [Music] you just get the wrong impression yeah i mean i if i look at somebody like this that looked like me i don't think i would trust him but i'm the most trustworthy person that you'll ever find i mean you give me a thousand dollars to hold for you for six months when you come back you might get 999 dollars back you know i might i spent a dollar on some bubble gum that i can't chew aha [ __ ] buried ah hey the wind stopped blowing life is good out here [Music] wow some hippies do shave not very many but some [Music] my own place called the slab city internet cafe the only public place in town for internet electricity and in the morning's coffee the coffee situation it's interesting he don't even like coffee i can't stand the crap it's the nastiest tasting stuff i've ever tried and i tried it twice just to make sure he has never drank coffee he's going to live longer than us i can't even stand the smell of it this smell turns my stomach but my customers like coffee so i give them coffee in the morning he taught me how to make it his way will you carry this one out [Music] my day usually starts pretty early in the winter time i'll start coffee about six o'clock in the morning to get coffee out for the customers by seven i wouldn't know if i make good coffee or bad but i'm told i make the best cup in the county [Music] hey guys there's a lot of coffee in your mouth before you even try to take a [ __ ] yeah i do coffee from seven till ten or seven to eleven depending upon how many people are around i'm open seven days a week i don't have coffee all day long because they could drink me dry [Music] uh oh i wasn't blocking i said i run strictly solar but i have enough power coming off my panels that i can provide electricity um up until couple you know maybe two hours before sundown i have no power no lights no nothing this place you can take your cell phone you can plug it into a power cord you can charge it up you can do that with your computer too and if you've got people you want to keep in touch with why you can get online which seems to be pretty unique i think he's got six or eight batteries over there and then a thousand watts of solar power so that people could come in there and plug in you know and then uh all he's asking is for donations you know so that he can pay for some of that stuff you know rob's one of my best friends the cafe has always been uh it's always been like a home for me home away from home you know it's probably one of my favorite places to hang out [ __ ] awesome it's a community it's like a small neighborhood everybody out here is pretty much like family not everybody but most of us [Music] damn it's already 11 o'clock [Music] god this morning's gone quick hey charlie [Music] oh shrika [Music] shrika and that dog shrika [Music] come on you know it took a little while to get used to the heat but uh definitely beats cold less than 300 people live here during the summer winter time there could be as many as 2 000 people here but come june and the real heat they're all gone you're talking just just to people who can tolerate extreme needs which is a very hard thing to do for a lot of people coming out without the knowledge or understanding of this desert because it does get very very hot in the summer 125 degrees 130 degrees like we're talking you know 50 55 degrees celsius for people who can't convert [Music] all right when it gets up to 125 degrees i hardly ever drink during the summer because uh the alcohol dehydrates you so i do all my drinking when it's cool and get my get my belly ready for the [Music] summer me [Music] so i'm not going anywhere ever no i'm your mind oh in my mind oh no in my brain i'm here waiting on a bus don't you remember okay yeah i'm here waiting on a couple of buses and the president but that's never going to happen that's okay thanks so now i'm waiting i randomly found my way to slab city i was on my way to my friend's court case in la and we ran into a friend that mentioned slab city so we made the way here we were in a bmw and that car blew up we traded it for a van that blew up and we finally made our way here i was traveling through when people were talking about this free place to live in the winter and we came out here to check it out and we got i fell in love with the place i was like a snowbird i would come down every winter over to uh arizona while i was camped there two ladies came up and said george you ever been a slab city and now i've heard of it you know but i've never been there oh god you got to go there you'd fit right in you fit right in to slab city life snowbird is a type of person who runs away from the cold kind of like i did but they only come down for the winter and then as soon as the weather starts to warm up they'll go back north to where they came from i decided to change my life around be wild and do the things they told me i couldn't do when i was teenager and all that other stuff rebellion society and everything got myself in legal troubles that sent me to prison for seven years and in the last year i've just gotten out of prison there's no hostility i don't think there's a single person in here that hates another person at all i mean it's been amazing it's been a long time since i felt this accepted in a random environment now i'm starting over my life as a single elderly lady paid my debt to the society and got out and came down here i hadn't intended on staying [Music] permanently there's there's a lot of quiet moments which is nice i spent a lot of time in the big city i enjoyed the big city but i also like the peace and quiet of the country [Music] [Music] so [Music] i don't know just coming here though has really changed me in multiple ways but mentally physically before i got here i was honestly just hurting other people and myself because of what i was and now i've came to a realization of who i am and what i'm worth and i have slab city and the people here to thank for that hey come here now [Music] yeah we got enough for now there are no public utilities out here so if you need water you have to obtain it for yourself you don't pay rent but you still pay you got to pay for water you got to pay for your food you gotta pay for your clothing and laundry and the upkeep on your dog the upkeep on your place you gotta pay for that you gotta find a way to do it out here the best you can uh one tank is between 270 and 300 gallons of water that usually lasts three to four weeks one of the great things about my place is i'm the only one out here that's got a shower that's got a hot water tank on it and everybody stops by and i gotta help them yeah it's not really a public shower you know you do got to come over and ask permission but george is a nice enough guy that most people they'll say yes to people come by and i charge them three dollars for a shower because i gotta burn my propane and then the water too you know i gotta run in and haul my water so three bucks is pretty cheap you have to be very conservative with your water out here if you take a shower you take a trickle shower you know you wet yourself down turn the water off soak yourself up turn the water back on rinse yourself off you flip a light switch and it turns the pump on and you take a shower you can do a shower in less than five gallons that just means you've got shower water for another day don't use it during my tv time [Music] it's pretty cool oh you look so much better i'll bet you smell better too i feel pretty here oh so pretty yeah well you don't look any better i give him his showers for free because that's how good of a friend it is like it costs three dollars to be my friend yeah a good day for me is a slight breeze outside with nice sunshine so i can go outside and do my normal activities i live out here in slab city because it's awesome i have three older brothers and one sister four dogs i work out here every saturday picking up garbage off the side of the road there's no more jobs out here to do except being a gas station worker or a food market worker [Music] during the week i go over to school and basically do nothing except school stuff then i just go home and do my homework well supposedly do my homework and that's about it i am still hoping to be able to go to the moon one day i'm serious i i've been wanting i've been wanting to go to the moon since neil armstrong touched down on the moon in 1969. i may not be able to travel to another star but in 5-10 years i could very well stand on the moon and i would love that i want to be like a soldier in the u.s army or air force somewhere around there when i grow up because i want to just hear gun battles and see what it's really like instead of video games and movies on the other side of the fence off of canal road here in slab city we have three military bases we've got the marines the air force and the naval and every once in a while you get the airplanes going over you get the bombs going off you get firing and test sites is what it is it makes it quite loud if you're not used to it but you get used to it when you're out here long enough once in a while you'll see a cloud of smoke rise up off of the top of the mountain and then like 10 seconds later you'll hear this and the cloud of smoke will already be there you're just hearing it afterwards it's like delayed i like seeing the helicopters fly over our heads what they mainly do in the morning is go really really low and really really loud [Music] they're not supposed to wave at us uh about a month ago there was three of them that flew they were flying real low over here and i stood out here with a beer waving at them and somebody hung out the door and waved back i don't know if they got in trouble for it or not but that was the first time in two and a half years anybody had ever waved back so yeah it made me feel pretty good they saw me so [Music] you know how you sit around notes in like classes and [ __ ] and the teacher tries to catch you and it doesn't work well anyway we're passing around notes and miss reed comes around listen mr fields what are you doing passing around notes while i'm trying to teach a class i'm like well i'm boring yeah and she was like well you can leave this classroom right now and get suspended or you could stay in this classroom and go to detention i'm like miss reed you're my favorite teacher i love science but if you give me detention i'm not going i'd say i'm kind of a greeter but i'm kind of family too a bunch of the kids that like to talk to me and hang around with me i'm seeing kids like half my age 20 year olds they they adopt me as mom and i was thinking to myself why do i have detention i haven't done anything wrong so you know what i did i stopped doing all of my work okay i didn't do [ __ ] [ __ ] i went into the class and i put my head down they won't say it out loud or anything else but there's a couple of them that look at me like mom so i kind of fit into that role i've had five kids you know my youngest is 21. my eldest is 30. i have four grandkids right now haven't seen any of them so it finally came to the point where i met the principal so i'm sitting here like this sleeping on my desk and this [ __ ] comes in takes that big ass [ __ ] textbook off the table [ __ ] he didn't hit the table he hit me yeah i want you to have id i jumped about that chair and [ __ ] knocked him one right in his [ __ ] mouth well zack it's my brother personally that dude is funny he is i like waking up and jack is right there knowing that i got a brother that's with me right now that's why you don't ever see them three times my brother were killed by the law enforcement and my cousin was killed because of games i missed him so much i miss him i was flipping the [ __ ] out i'm not allowed on any public school grounds in california [Music] ever zach is my guy he's cool man he helped me out when i first came here and he was like you i like you and i'm like like you too bro we've been cool ever since did you take my cigarette yep man i can't have nothing around here you know casey and tommy my older brother taught them that it was cool to run up to me as fast as hard as they could powerslide and punch me in the balls i can't have any more kids besides the one i have and i don't feel anything if you punch me in the testicles so good luck you don't feel pain in your testicles i don't feel pain in this foot because i've been kicked in it so many times because everybody keep thinking that's my weak spot no buddy it's actually my strong spot i throw my life people that thought just because i walk like this that that foot is my weakness at one time it used to be but so many people have tried to kick me in there actually have kicked me in there that i felt pain when i first started but i'm just so used to getting kicked theirs doesn't mind it mind it no more and i'm gonna do to you what i would do to anybody else that throws a kick at me i'm gonna grab you you think you're invincible that's what you're thinking so let's go out there and test the theory or it can get dropped right now you want to go test that theory i won't put you to sleep but you will attack i love music actually i am a beat creator i have been making beats since i was young started getting good everybody recognized i was like you're doing good man you should keep going okay kept going [Music] you can hear one of my instrumentals it has a piano solo ha ha ha on the beat drops [Music] damn [Music] tap tap [Music] [Music] uh [Music] middle school i got tired of getting bullied so i'm like okay i'm crippled like okay so i'm gonna get my fighting skills better join wrestling learn how to wrestle you lose something but you live to fight another day [Music] never give up [ __ ] [Music] that my friends are professional wrestling i smile a lot because i try to hide all the pain that's inside of me that's all i do every day we do have a moral code as warped as it may seem at times there is a moral code out here it may be a little anarchical out here everybody lives by their own rules as long as it doesn't interfere with me or affect my life negatively adults can do as they please as skewed as it may seem to the rest of the world um we have a very strong moral fiber your neighbor waking you up at three o'clock in the morning when you're sound asleep and go live in a residential community where there's a [ __ ] bedtime and cold so i don't give a [ __ ] for tweakers any more than i give a [ __ ] for alcoholics i banned that [ __ ] i'm not catching the bad the bad behavior of people but i'm saying you can't categorize someone by the substance they do you know what yes i can because if they know they have a problem they have the power to stop it i respect rob he's he's trying to do well over there he started getting tired of the tweakers so he started running them out you know and and everybody liked like him for that you know to stay up all night yelling and screaming and everything and he was getting tired of it we have a big problem with meth addicts out here americans call them tweakers because they like to tweak with things uh stealing things from other people you know they're very desperate drug addicts and the police can't do much about that and they're not much worried about it either it's very hard to get the police to uh respond out here [Music] you can't make rules in the place where there's no rules you even have a so you got the [ __ ] right to wake me up in three and [ __ ] you you even have a sign in front of the internet cafe we remember freedom freedom is not the right to [ __ ] your neighbors a lot of people didn't like what they saw here personally and refused to see the whole picture and they go away thinking that slab city is nothing but a bunch of drug addicts and it's not that it's an artist community there are unfortunately a lot of alcoholics and drug users here um that's the type of place it is when you don't have to pay rent you're keeping us all up over here because you got all these [ __ ] tweakers over here and y'all are always up all [ __ ] night well guess what you're gonna [ __ ] leave if you don't like it shit's gonna start happening [Laughter] come on rob i'll be there in a minute there may sometimes be a lot of yelling and screaming but you know what it's better to yell and scream and get it out than to hold it in let it build up and let it come to the point where you harm somebody [Music] and i understand what you're saying rob and i apologize i i did it and i agree but how can you take someone's side and let them come in when it's not his [ __ ] situation and he's done more damage to the slabs than anybody [ __ ] here zach has had just like a lot of the people here has had a very [ __ ] up life i have a chance given time to shows that there are better ways he could have walked up behind that guy and put him in the [ __ ] grave he didn't the zack that i met two and a half years ago would have just [ __ ] taken a club and beat the guy over the head dude i'll beat the [ __ ] out of you with both of these coffee thermoses and then pour them on you can't say nothing bad about him all the people be like oh he's this oh he's that you know i've been with zach ever since i've been here and i haven't seen him do nothing wrong unless it's for a reason you have to respect people out here and they're not going to respect you at all [Music] hey look at these douche bags this is an alpha community everybody up here is an alpha um and of course when two alphas come together they're eventually going to butt heads if they don't have their space but we do live we do for the most part live in harmony rob doesn't like violence at the cafe we don't induce violence at the cafe we try to stop it as much as we can cafe the only thing i allow is pot anything harder and they get tossed out i don't even allow alcohol anymore if they want to go get drunk they can go somewhere [ __ ] else [Music] i try not to me negative as much as i can when negativity happens when there's fights and stuff like that i try to forget those i remember them but i try not to harbor on them and i try to look at the chirping of birds you know the beauty of the desert i try to remember something beautiful in that situation and that's what i try to live my life by sorry rob none of what you did was intentionally [Music] well rob i gotta tell you he's one of the wisest men i've met actually the way he brings himself and the way he like if somebody gets an argument the way he defuses it and the way he words things he loves to conversate with people he loves learning about people and he just loves people rob's a great person [Music] hey steve yeah i'm just peeking in to see if shriek is in here yes okay man shrika did come in yeah shrika are you in here baby no she's not in here a lot of us have got our dogs and we get attached to them the cafe has got their own dogs they were puppies that were born together the same litter if we didn't have all the dogs then it would be a lot of problems around here because whenever i get angry all i do is pick up my puppy and look at her face and all my angry leaves you teach it gentle yes you teach it gentle we protect children we protect animals we treat our animals better than we treat ourselves me and my dog we usually spend all day here with nobody coming around i enjoy the solitude of just being alone and being able to relax yeah i love it out here i just love it if i had one wish i wish i could find me a a nice woman uh i even posted it online on facebook you know i'm looking for a nice woman to stay with me do the cooking cleaning do my laundry and everybody said you want a maid you don't want a [ __ ] wife tomorrow's my birthday i want to be 65 years old and i figured well it would be nice to settle down a little bit and it'd be nice to have a woman to share that with you know and now i'm getting all sentimental and [ __ ] you know [Music] shrika [Music] [Music] [Applause] you get to know the animals you get to know them by name you know they'll run out they'll talk to you they'll say hi to you in the mornings and they go on to their journey of the day there you are baby hi come here come on you had me worried baby come on up yeah oh yes hi gator yes hi gators you had me worried baby well done i gotta avoid the police until april 30th is it traffic tickets it's traffic court it's not a ticket bro it's a [ __ ] invading arrest and i also just was debating arrest and destroyed a cop car with an f350 hey [ __ ] off you're gonna come play right next to me when i'm drinking coffee piss off go go hey go [ __ ] and that's how i got caught up and that's why i'm going through all this stupid [ __ ] now today is my brother zach's birthday and he is turning 19 and we are going to celebrate it by doing everything under the sun that cannot get us in trouble while still having fun at the same time i at least have to not go to jail until after my birthday [Music] i will eventually one day be leaving um there'll come a day where i won't be able to go up on the roof anymore to move the panels around [Music] hey zach you wanna come here yo yeah come here i need your fix this a little bit because now that we've got this back we can't have the cord hanging down so i need that and when that day comes that that will definitely be the day that i leave who knows it may be sooner but right now this is home [Music] and we are going to get so hammered tonight i don't know what we're doing but we're gonna have fun tonight we are the raids is a very special place i advise everybody to come to the range at slab city please [Music] saturdays like tonight is one of the biggest nights of the week because we all gather up on the stage that was set up by builder build and it's called the range that's when the alcohol flows through and you have my good times on saturday nights sundays are my day off i don't do another somebody comes over wants something done i'll tell them i'll do it on monday because i've usually got a hangover it's fantastic i just go out there and dance dance my heart out and i'm better when i come back on sunday a whole better person again [Music] [Music] yeah we work hard and we play hard out here too different tones different pitches different instruments i've seen all of the way from a cello to a flute to harmonica playing the blues of their own outrage it is a range of music [Music] [Music] down and [Music] i may go down to listen to listen to a new musician for half an hour to an hour but that's pretty much it this place keeps me pretty busy and by the time that's going i'm pretty tired just want to sit back and relax [Music] one me [Music] i'm as human as everybody else i make my stupid mistakes but i do tend to be self-reflective think about you know jesus what would i just do what i want to really do don't stop learning don't stop growing work harder each day to be a better person than you were yesterday and never rest on your lawns for your own personal growth you need to constantly learn that's the mistake too many people make is resting on their accomplishments you gotta keep doing something [Music] new my mother worked for the same employer for 32 years my sister is months away from putting in her 30th year with a single employer couldn't do it maybe if i was an astronaut for nasa yes i plan on going to the moon before i die [Music] smiling [Music] they [Music] they they keep kicking me off of the private network and it's really pissing me off so before you leave we definitely have to take care of the internet and be getting on and off without [Music] complications [Music] you

Channel: Real Stories

Views: 2,500,334

Keywords: documentary 2023, full length documentaries 2023, documentary movies - topic, free documentaries on YouTube, Real stories uk, real stories full documentary 2023, saving capitalism documentary, corporate america is toxic, corporate america documentary, last free place in america the lawless slab city, the last free place in america slab city endevr documentary, Rob's internet cafe, slab city 2023, slab city documentary, slab city california, slab city mrbeast

Id: SKTSVWiYee8

Length: 52min 34sec (3154 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 02 2020