Jules Dervaes continues to be mocked after his recent spate of threats against anyone using the name "Urban Homesteaders". Dervaes was a former Pasadena WCG employee who went off the deep end and spent a year or more picketing and protesting the Worldwide Church of God.
He and his family moved into a small bungalow off or Orange Grove Blvd where they started doing back year farming, using bicycles to power their mixers and blenders and taking only one shower a week to save on water.
Larry Wilson from the Pasadena Star News rips the family a new one over their stupid legal challenges:
Larry Wilson: Legal Dirt of Pasadena's Farming Dervaes Family
I've never darkened the Dervaes family door, although I may be the only Southern California journalist not to have paid a visit to the farm in the city that Jules Dervaes and his daughters and son have made both an agricultural and media phenomenon. Living (almost) off the grid, pedaling a stationary bike to run the Mixmaster when a farmhand feels like a smoothie, showering but once a week to keep the water bill down - doesn't matter that the story's been done, over and over. It's a great story.
And now, it's a creepy one, because of a weird linguistic power grab.
Though the term "urban homestead" has been around the formerly wild West at least since the halcyon working-hippie days of the Whole Earth Catalog four decades ago, the Dervaes are attempting to copyright it, along with "urban homesteading," claiming sole right to be able to use those words. Or at least to use them without the stupid "R" in a circle that signifies English that had been part of the commonweal is now owned by some joker or another. (An affectation you don't have to use, by the way. "Rose Parade" is a copyrighted term, for instance. The TofR uses the "R" to keep its claim live; the rest of us don't have to.)
After the family succeeded in intimidating Facebook into shutting down others using the term, the wonderfully droll Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly reports a new Facebook site, Take Back Urban Home-steading(s), is fighting against what he terms the "dingbat Dervaes." I just went there and found almost 2,000 "friends." Typical comment: "I am deeply disappointed that these folks, whom I previously admired, are causing so much grief for people who have been using the phrase for years."
The Dervaes apparently have resorted to bullying tactics and bullied Facebook into taking down other "Urban Homesteader" site. One person the Dervaes succeeded in getting kicked off of Facebook has started a new page to protest the "dingbat Dervaes".
This page has evolved into an organic expression of the urban homesteading community and our quest for keeping the words which define who we are as a movement and community germane to all of us. In a real way we're advocating for one another; we're discussing, networking, organizing for change, creating events, and expanding our vast and original knowledge of urban homesteading. We're finding new formats in spreading the word that we ARE urban homestead, and that nobody can copyright our identity, which belongs to all of us.
The Derveas family has recently trademarked the terms "Urban Homestead" and "Urban Homesteading." These terms can no longer be used in facebook page titles, or on blogs or otherwise for profit. If you use the term not for profit you must use the trademark symbol and "specifically identify products or services from the Dervaes Institute." They add that it would be "proper to use generic e=terms such as "modern homesteading." They have had facebook pages with the terms Urban Homestead and Urban Homesteading in the name shut down without notifying those pages first. Please join this group to show that UH is not a brand or company, but a grassroots community and lifestyle.
There are loads of other links on this Facebook page (above) from people challenging the Dervaes.