I can’t believe it has almost been a year since we moved out to East Jesus. It has been a crazy journey. Jenn and I were asked to be caretakers of this amazing experimental, sustainable, habitable art installation in progress soon after we moved here, and we took over in April. It has been a wonderful 6 months, the resident artists and ourselves have expanded the organic gardening, expanded the battery capacity, built numerous structures, upgraded our water distribution, and created fantastic art.

But it got much more complicated than that when we moved here in October. in January we learned that the California State Land Commission was looking for someone to lease or purchase the 1 square mile of Slab City (Formerly USMC Camp Dunlap). A representative of the CSLC had approached the board of nearby Salvation Mountain and offered to sell the land to them, but the board declined, and elected instead to pursue a much smaller plot of land, leaving the rest of Slab City, including East Jesus, in control of the CSLC.

I soon discovered with my l337 google-fu why they were offering the land. The one-square mile of Slab City is a part of the West Chocolate Mountains Renewable Energy Evaluation Area, an area designated by the State of California as an area that is highly suited for Geothermal and Solar energy plants. It turns out that by 2020, California must produce 33% of it’s energy by renewable sources. But Solar and Wind energy is very poor as providing “baseline” energy, as their power output fluctuates constantly. Geothermal Energy is the only constant, reliable form of renewable energy that can be use to provide a “baseline” amount of energy that the grid can rely upon. The Salton Sink is the largest wet geothermal plain in the world, but also has reliable high pressure which results in high amounts of sunlight.

Informative Brochure: http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/wo/MINERALS__REALTY__AND_RESOURCE_PROTECTION_/energy/priority_projects.Par.70469.File.dat/WestChocolateMountainsROD_factsheet.pdf

The WCM REEA was created in order to offer low cost, non-competitive long term leases to energy companies in a very quick manner. This meant that our new home was now in danger. A group of people who live in the slabs (slabbers, as we call ourselves) quickly formed a non-profit with the goal of purchasing the rest of the slabs so that all stakeholders (people with a vested interest) in the slabs could control it, thereby saving it from developers, and maintaining the slabs, which includes East Jesus, as it is. Jenn was elected to the board of this new non-profit, Slab City Community Group Incorporated.

Unfortunately, many other slabbers saw a conspiracy, one in which the organizing members of SCCGI were attempting to make a power grab, and then charge rent for staying in slab city, or throw out people they do not like, or other more unfathomable reasons. These opponents of SCCGI began fighting tooth and nail against the new non-profit, by disseminating their theories about hidden conspiracies or shadowy overlords, or by calling ever local and state official they could find and complain about the activities of SCCGI.

It became clear by the end of January that it would be impossible for SCCGI to quell the fears of the opposition, and that it was unlikely that SCCGI would succeed in purchasing the land. So in order to protect our new home, I acted.

East Jesus has been run by a board of directors that was named by Charlie Russell, the founder of East Jesus, a few months before he passed away in 2011. I took that board and used it to form a new company, The Chasterus Foundation (named after one of Charlie’s handles, and his blog, Chaster.us). It was my goal with the formation of this company to purchase the land that East Jesus sits on, so that no one person would be “King of East Jesus” and to ensure that its mission of an Experimental, Sustainable, Educational, Habitable Art Installation in Progress would continue.

I have had to overcome great obstacles in trying to purchase the land. Fortunately I am pretty smart, and can come up with solutions to the problems thrown at us. In order to expedite the process I have done all the footwork that the State normally does in this process, which has shockingly worked! All I had to do was a metric fuckton of research.

I also immediately began to pursue California Non-profit and Federal Tax-exempt status for this new corporation. This was to make sure that we could continue to expand with the help of grants, partnerships and donations. No one receives any salary from the Chasterus Foundation, everything goes into making East Jesus better and fulfilling our goals.

I believe in a “world without waste”… the idea that so much that we put in landfills is still useful if it is reused or repurposed creatively. I also believe that we can teach people how we do things here, so that more people can live exceptional lives in our current world of stagnant wages and rising housing, food, and transportation costs. Being a 501(c)3 (tax-exempt) organization allows us to continue and expand this mission, to experiment with creative reuse solutions, green technology solutions, low technology solutions, water reclamation and production solutions, organic farming solutions, composting solutions, and community involvement solutions to many of the issues that people face throughout the world.

Our mission also includes the curation of our existing art installations, showing these installations to the public, and the creation of new art and new art installations. We seek to inspire people to see beauty in everyday things around them, and to show that if you are creative and work hard, you can create wondrous things.

Today I received notice of the acceptance of our 1023 application for Tax-exempt status with no amendments. We received our California non-profit status with no amendments 3 months ago, and I submitted the paperwork for the Purchase of State Lands last week.

I have never held an office job in my entire life. The closest to an office job that I ever had was Teleradiology Diagnostic Services, where I was paid to watch South Park and eat pizza (for the most part), and type out a few reports.
I have generated over 500 pieces of paper in this quest. I have had to research and learn about tax law, liability law, corporate law, Land use law, building and safety code, and even the laws governing the post office. I have had conference calls with state officials, met giants in the world of electric vehicles, and drafted letters of intent for grant proposals.

It has been an epic amount of work. I have spent hours a day building and doing chores, then had to hide in our office and spend countless more hours filling out forms, researching the law, and forming a plan of what to do if all this works. It has been the most difficult and most rewarding Job I have ever had (even though I get paid zero dollars).

And there is so much more I haven’t even gotten into, such as the actual infrastructure projects we are planning, fundraising events, parties, art slams, mud wrestling, clothing optional skeet shooting, more gardening with science, and crazy amounts more.

This event is the official beginning of the “Season” for East Jesus. That time when the weather is beautiful, and we have an influx of visitors.

I want to ask everyone who reads this to please, come to East Jesus and see what we are doing. This event is great because there is a whole 6 months of parties and events following it to go to if you decide you love the place like we do.

Who knows? Maybe you will want to be a part of our future.