Slab City, CA

I rang in the new year in Slab City, an unincorporated territory just outside of Niland, CA. Slab city lies between the Salton Sea and the Chocolate mountains. Desert brush speckles the sandy soil. Abandoned military-base sewage-treatment facilities are painted with colorful graffiti.

Annual around the new year, people gather near the Slabs to be together, play, make music, and generally cavort. The folks are Spaz (spaz.org) people mostly, and SF Bay Area people, mostly. Strange on my trip to re-encounter Oakland-ness one last time before finally leaving California.

The official Spaz bus was parked next to one large empty concrete sewage container, which was used as a projection wall. Synthesized music played throughout new year’s eve and well into the morning. I woke at 7 a.m. to some particularly hyper beats, and could not fall back alseep. I got up in a tired but wired haze, walked into the desert, and sunbathed and stretched.

The landscape mixed with the music and projected moving geometric shapes was enough to make one trip out even without any mind-altering substances.

A trampoline was set up near the Spaz bus and the dance floor. Golf clubs and balls were available to set off into the distance, and a couple of recurve bows and a pile of arrows was set up with a target. People spray painted on the various concrete structures, hung out, partied, cooked in the outdoor Spaz kitchen.

Asa and Dickie from Berkeley cooked up a rooster they had slaughtered (and Asa had raised), and made a lovely rooster soup and stir-fry. For some reason, the desert lessened my appetite. The rooster meal was about the only full meal I ate there. The rooster head and entrails were buried under the dance floor with various plant material and herbs.

The moon shone intensely both nights I was there. The night of the 1st, a bright halo encircled it. A flashlight was not even needed to traverse the nighttime terrain.

So, here’s to Semi-Permanent Autonomous Zones.