With all this talk about the upcoming
Slab City Riot 3 just a few days away, I started looking back at some old pics of the last two Riots. Any way that you slice it or dice it, they've been a great time! About 80 miles in to the first one, it seemed my knuck began to starve for gas, yet the tank was full. Nothing like carb troubles in the middle of the damn desert! No matter what I did, once I hit 70mph, it cut out. I'd let off the gas a bit and the power would roll back on, till I hit 70mph and then it would repeat over and over. By the time I made it, I had a wicked case of whiplash.
Here we are replacing the hokie ass copper oil lines that had been put on to replace a broken steel line. I had just gotten the carb sorted out, hit 90mph on the freeway and GTP came screaming up behind me pointing! The oil was pouring out and making a massive smoke cloud. He thought I had burst in to flames riding because of the carb. The oil was hitting behind me so I never even saw or smelled the smoke!
We always meet up at the Waffle House in Tempe, AZ before we roll out. This was the meet for the first Slab City Riot. I had no choice, I had to take a picture with this waitress. Check out how thick her mustache is! It was thicker than the one that I had shaved off only the night before!
This shot here of the Knuck was probably the most victorious I had ever felt riding her. It was a battle like no other getting her to the Slabs between the oil lines and the nightmare of the carb, but I rolled in on her and rolled out on her! Koko made me proud as fuck that day. RIDE A KNUCK, CHANGE YOUR LUCK!
Overcoming carb issues was one thing, overcoming other issues took a bit more effort. Well, effort and court dates as well. Friends from New Mexico had made the trip out to ride with us and we didn't make it even out of Phoenix before the shit hit the fan!
We've been through carb shit on the way in and just went you think you got it made, on the way home, that's when the throttle cables break. Thank God we all have friends who allow each other to butcher their bikes for parts that we need for our own. Thanks to brother Skoog and his push and pull throttle, he had both cable still on his bike... well he did for the first 8 miles of the ride....
I love the way that hungover, Brother Adam is praying to the chopper Gods! Please oh please let this cable somehow work! His prayers were answered.... in this instance. As you can see in this pic, it is nice and sunny and warm! Holy shit that didn't last! Wait, let me show you at this point, where the Knuck was.....
Piled up in the truck with the garbage, the coolers and the luggage. As it turns out that a 10 cent rubber grommet inside the carb had rotted away and that was the cause of all the trouble on the way out! We gutted it, took it apart and Charlie the Nomad went on a hunt in Slab City. He came back with a busted up old camp stove. Found a grommet, believe it or not that was damn near the size and we went to work on it with the file from my leatherman. The last thing you want to do is be standing in the position that I was, in the middle of the desert 300 miles from home. The crazy part is, look how happy I still was.
We put the grommet in the carb, put the carb back together, put the carb back on the bike which let everyone else get some much needed sleep because we sure as shit didn't get any the night before. I kicked the bike over and she fired up on the first kick! I rode her all the way out of the Slabs and down in to the town of Niland and when I twisted the throttle, it was over! Thank God we had the truck!
As I wrote in my last blog post about that first trip, we had arrived just as the sun was about to set. Within a few minutes of our arrival, it was dark. Within a few more, it was like being out in space. We had no idea where we had set up camp until the morning. That is when we had an idea of where we were at and just where we had stayed. You ever wonder what happens to those campers that people put in their trucks and make the truck about 10 foot high and then they drive them under a 9'8" bridge? One would think that they go to the junk yard and get crushed! Not true! They go to Slab City and people live in them.
This is no bullshit folks, people actually live in these things. They get scraps of metal and wooden pallets and they make little fences and gates around them and they decorate them. It is mind blowing. Now some of the families that live here are too large for them all to fit in to one smashed up slide in camper shell. What's a family to do you ask? Easy answer, just move on in to a two family home like the one shown here in the photo below! It's fucking mind blowing!
Everything at the Riot revolves around the Range. It is a stage area with upside down home depot "Homie" buckets hung upside down with light bulbs in them. That is the stage lighting! If memory serves me correctly, the man in charge of the stage is named Builder Bob.... no not Bob The Builder as one would think. As at any performance hall or venue, you need seating right? Old theater seats without the fabric over the springs are lined up in front of the stage along with all the removable mini van bench seats that have been taken out over the years. The first time that I saw it a few thoughts entered my mind. First, I thought of all the movies with the hippies, Easy Rider comes to mind immediately! They go back to the commune and the hippies perform on stage, this may very well be THAT VERY STAGE! Then the next thought entered my mind, this screams Spahn Ranch, you know, where the Manson Family lived. As a matter of fact, the entire place had a very MANSONESQUE feel to it!
Then there are the what the fuck was I thinking times. Like when you just loosely tie a flannel on the back of your bike while trying to fix your risers as the sun is setting. You figure, hey, I'm only a few mile away, I'm only going to put it right back on when I get there...... well until it sucks down in to your chain, then in to your primary and then your bike comes to a screeching halt as you are riding. You and a great many of your friends then spend the next 11 hours or so picking pieces flannel out, one screwdriver size piece at a time!
In the spirit of the Slabs, you have to use everything you find, anywhere. One mans junk is another man's treasure! I guess some asshole looked on the map and it read Salton Sea so they came completely prepared for it! Since there was only one left, God only knows what happened to the asshole or the other leg?
After having learned our lesson picking the spot that we chose last year to camp, at the second Riot, we decided to move to the other side of the luxury home and stake our claim in a better hood. One of the photos above shows where we woke up and saw the paradise that is the Slabs. Imagine our surprise when we awoke this year on the good side of the house! HOLY FUCKING SHIT is all I can say! Take a look at this shit!
As you can see, a lot of progress has been done on the renovations and the additions that were added to this home in just one short year! I think the hubcap collection at the main entry to the home is the perfect touch and it just screams, WELCOME!
THE SLAB CITY RIOT is just simply about having a great time in the most traditional BIKER way possible. Well without the rape of course. I've still yet to get someone to rape me, but hey, there is always this year! It is also about partying till you damn near drop fucking dead! For some, they bring tents and for others it is just a bedroll to keep them off the cold ground. Then you have the rare person who goes through the trouble of setting up his tent only to use it as a bedroll anyway. These are my favorite! This time I brought a tent with me. I bent 24 tent stakes in half trying to pound them down in to the ground. I thought it was called Slab City because of the concrete slabs left behind after the base closed. I think it may actually be named this because the ground itself is hard as a fucking slab!
It was at the second Riot where I officially met the first Douches in my life that ever needed support! I could understand a Douche` needing a refill or to have the tube rinsed out, but never before support!
I could go on and on and tell the stories getting to and from the Riot, I could go on and on writing about the parts that fell off, the bikes that broke and the crazy shit that has happened, worse yet, what I've seen. I won't do it though. I just took a walk down Slab City Riot memory lane and it made me smile ear to ear and I thought I would share it with you. What I wanted to do more than anything was end this with photos of the tourist who came to the Riot the very first year, had such a good time that she screwed a dog. No, I don't mean that she found an ugly broad or an unattractive guy to hook up with. I mean this bitch got banged by a dog! Shit folks, I thought it was the local "Slabbers" that we had to worry about, boy was I wrong! It's the damn tourists that should scare ya. I'm sorry, I can't find any pics of the girl getting nailed by the dog, sorry to let you down. On another note, if you have any pics from Riot 1 of this moment, please feel free to send em my way!
For some crazy reason, with all the crazy shit that goes on there, all the bike shots, all the people shots and the shots of Salvation Mountain that I have, this is hands down my favorite pic from the Slab City Riot ever. That big tan pile next to the coals is me and for the record, no that is not a Don Wood Gypsy Biker Bedroll, this one actually zips up.
Oh yeah, before I close out this post, let me remind you of one very important thing. Make sure before you leave that you check your site for valuables and such and do a quick double check of the garbage, you just never know what you may find in there! Hell, look what we found in a pile of garbage.
So if you heard the rumor that George the Painter died 3 years ago, it is true. Look at this Ghostly Mother Fucker!
See you this weekend at the Slabs!
Until we see each other on the road,
Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back
and The Man off your ass!
Your friend,
Jack Shit
The green tent-roll pics: laughing hard.
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