{"id":371,"date":"2010-06-04T02:23:42","date_gmt":"2010-06-04T02:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/?p=371"},"modified":"2012-09-23T18:21:10","modified_gmt":"2012-09-23T18:21:10","slug":"meet-captain-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/?p=371","title":{"rendered":"meet Captain USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Living in the middle of nowhere, between a live bombing range and one of the world’s most spectacularly surreal and barren man-made disasters turned wildlife sanctuary, ensconced in an art compound made principally of garbage, has its advantages. For one, the boring cookie-cutter mundanes you don’t really want to see (I mean, you moved out to the middle of nowhere for a reason<\/em>, right?) think you’re a weirdo and go away. And then the poeple you do<\/em> want to meet, greet and get drunk with on occasion think you’re a weirdo and say to themselves, “Wow! A WEIRDO! One of us! One of us!<\/em>“ People who make big ridiculous things out of metal, shredded tires or styrofoam. People who pose naked with guns and people who set themselves on fire. In my three-and-a-half years here, I’ve been lucky enough to attract some very interesting folks, some of whom have eventually contributed to the general weirdness of East Jesus in very positive ways. Today I received a missive from a gentleman who goes by the stage name of Captain USA.<\/p>\n

No, I had never heard of him before, either. Note well: that’s pronounced “Captain OO-sa.”<\/p>\n

Indulge me in my initial skepticism for a moment: Sounds kinda hokey, right? Like a cross between a poor man’s Evel Knievel, some lost middle-aged biker dreaming of Captain America (the Easy Rider<\/em> one,) and the guy who still hasn’t gotten around to scraping the “Pride In Proudness” stickers off his car that have been there since 9\/11. Well, sort of, but not really. He’s in on the joke. He is a master of the fine art of Not Taking One’s Self Too Seriously. Captain USA is a backyard superhero. He sets himself on fire and then jumps off his garage roof into a kiddie pool. Then he does the same thing, only on a motorcycle. All this, and rightly so, in the name of Freedom. Good stuff, highly compelling:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Now here’s the fun part, for all you East Jesus \/ Slab City fans:<\/p>\n

Hello Sir! I love your art garden at Slab city. Been there 3 times. Love the desert ducks and the art cars especially. I was with art car camp at burning man last year and have been gratefully learning more and more about the art car community ever since. I have a proposition for you that I think could be one of the super duperest art car projects everr!<\/em><\/p>\n


\nMy name is Jimmy from Georgia aka Capt USA. One of my favorite forms of expression is thrilling stunts I perform as Capt USA celebrating freedom on the 4th of July. Each year my stunts get bigger and better and this year will be my greatest to date. My Nissan Pathfinder has 235000 miles on it. Hauled a trailer all the way to Cabo and back down the hard road along the Sea of Cortez. I call her El Burro, hence the title of my new stunt and art car project…The Flaming Burro of Freedom. <\/em><\/p>\n


\nI want to haul the Burro out to slab city on July 2 and start hot gluing roman candles and barrels of fun fire works along both sides of the exterior, spray paint it red white and blue. Then on the 4th spray the exterior with just enough gasoline to light it up and set all the fire works off at once while a stunt driver drives it and I ride El Burro on top in the Capt USA costume. Sounds crazy and dangerous. It is. But I have done this kind of thing many times. Check out my video. It will be amazing and no one will get hurt. <\/em><\/p>\n


\nI’m reaching out to you for help. Slab City is a community and I don’t want to barge in with my vision. I was hoping the stunt could help contribute to the freedom celebration that will already be taking place. I am hoping for your blessing, advice, and help to create the Flaming Burro of Freedom. I was thinking that maybe in return I could give you El Burro. She could be cleaned up after the stunt and turned in to a whole new creation. She still runs. Iam using her today to install Satellite Dishes for DirecTV. <\/em><\/p>\n


\nAnyway, I hope this letter finds you happy and well. And once again, I love your art. <\/em><\/p>\n


\nJimmy from Georgia<\/em><\/p>\n

Thanks, Jimmy! You’ll be hearing from me real soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living in the middle of nowhere, between a live bombing range and one of the world’s most spectacularly surreal and barren man-made disasters turned wildlife sanctuary, ensconced in an art compound made principally of garbage, has its advantages. For one, the boring cookie-cutter mundanes you don’t really want to see (I mean, you moved out [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,11,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-east-jeus","category-images","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chasterus.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}