{"id":23535,"date":"2012-05-22T01:31:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T01:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/curiositycounts-slab-city-is-catching-a-lot-of\/"},"modified":"2018-12-05T21:55:04","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T04:55:04","slug":"curiositycounts-slab-city-is-catching-a-lot-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/curiositycounts-slab-city-is-catching-a-lot-of\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0vVCSUafFVI?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=opaque\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/curiositycounts.com\/post\/23401067252\/slab-city-is-catching-a-lot-of-attention-these\" class=\"tumblr_blog\">curiositycounts<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Slab City is catching a lot of attention these days from the obscure, norms-challenging Vice Magazine documentary \u201cA Day In Slab City\u201d and over to the more mainstream Time Magazine piece, \u201cLiving Off The Grid\u201d. This look at the outpost known as \u201cthe last free place in America\u201d is both raw and eye-opening to what exists beyond our cities and suburbs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSlab City, their home for the past three months, is a squatters\u2019 camp deep in the badlands of California\u2019s poorest county, where the road ends and the sun reigns, about 190 miles southeast of Los Angeles and hour\u2019s drive from the Mexican border. The vast state-owned property gets its name from the concrete slabs spread out across the desert floor, the last remnants of a World War II\u2013era military base. In the decades since it was decommissioned, dropouts and fugitives of all stripes have swelled its winter population to close to a thousand, though no one\u2019s really counting. These days, their numbers are growing thanks to a modest influx of recession refugees like the Angios, attracted by do-it-yourself, rent-free living beyond the reach of electricity, running water and the law. And while the complexion of the Slabs, as the place is locally known, may be changing in some ways, the same old rule applies: respect your neighbor, or stay the hell away.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It\u2019s pretty much as close to the Old West as you\u2019re gonna get. Most of us don\u2019t own guns or none of that garbage, but if we have problems, we take care of [them],\u2019 says Ray, 56, a former drug addict turned born-again Christian who has traversed the country six times with a giant wooden cross on his back. Katie Ray, 30, a perennial visitor from Oakland, Calif., calls the place a \u2018postapocalyptic vacation zone.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/nation\/article\/0,8599,2105597,00.html#ixzz1vLfmjQc6\">via\u00a0<strong>Time Magazine<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"attribution\">(<span>Source:<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>curiositycounts: Slab City is catching a lot of attention these days from the obscure, norms-challenging Vice Magazine documentary \u201cA Day In Slab City\u201d and over to the more mainstream Time Magazine piece, \u201cLiving Off The Grid\u201d. This look at the outpost known as \u201cthe last free place in America\u201d is both raw and eye-opening to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","hentry","category-words","post_format-post-format-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-67B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23536,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23535\/revisions\/23536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}