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.
NO2HWA, thanks for digging up the dirt on this one and the greening of the blog. Thanks for giving us a whiff of how difficult it is to determine which is the Urbane farmer and which is the fertilizer. It's a nice organic article.
ReplyDeleteOne wonders though, if Jules has planted a couple of fruit bearing trees....
It's been a load of fertilized since the very first day they started picketing WCG. So it has just been getting deeper and deeper though the years.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the man or the family, but I do remember the bus out on Colorado Blvd from time to time years ago.
ReplyDeleteBob Jones University just up the street always has some former BJ'er protesting. For years, a former faculty member walked up and down in front of the Campus dressed in his Masonic Finest, staff, fez and medals. Don't know the issues, but he walked until he died.
Aside from perhaps the petty drama that detracts from the intentions, he's probably way ahead of his time as this world falls apart economically, socially, spiritually and politically. Actually lots of other "ally's" I'm sure too.
I wonder why stay in LA? The garden there won't save you in an earthquake or social meltdown. Surprised they have not taken up residence in Idaho or at least not LA.
I admire the self sufficiency thing even though it may be illusionary since so many pack heat to take it away from you.
He'd be wise to befriend the urban homesteaders community for the times to come instead of pissing them off.
Everything in our society now hangs on a thread. We are three days from food shortages and just a few minutes from the stone age if our electronic world shuts down.
balance I suppose Dennis D
We are three days from food shortages...
ReplyDeleteWhat I see at the grocery store are food shortages. Actually, shortages of human food.
Nearly every synthetically manufactured food crud I see has corn for filler, corn derivatives, or tons of industrial strength high fructose corn syrup for sweetener added to it. Thanks, farm lobby. HFCS or with a bull corn artificial sweetener such as aspartame. No wonder Americans are turning into energy hogs.
Then I leave to put some energy-wasting corn ethanol in my gas tank which will crater my gasoline engine, despite the junk science put out by the EPA supporting 15% ethanol blends. :0
Perhaps he should plant two nut trees in the garden.
ReplyDeleteIt would be symbolic.
I'm thinking Eve took the fruit from an off limits, godfood, fig tree. She and Adam probably figured that since we blew it and ate the figs, we may as well use the leaves to cover our sinful, shameful selves. I mean..what can it hurt now?
ReplyDelete:) Dennis
Dennis also notes: ..that fig-ures. The story is a fig-ment of some Sumerian mind. Go fig-ure....
ReplyDeleteEverything in our society now hangs on a thread. We are three days from food shortages and just a few minutes from the stone age if our electronic world shuts down.
ReplyDeleteA little longer than that actually. We were in Mobile when Katrina hit, and we had no electricity for about 10 days. Poor people and folks who don't do weekly shopping were affected the most, but we didn't even lose water pressure since they have their own independent power supplies.
We have also just experienced a freeze in the DFW area that stopped all grocery resupply for close to a week. Again, barer shelves but you should see Wal-Mart's local warehouses.
Perhaps it would be worse in rural areas but most people live in sizable cities in America these days.
Just taking the Dervaes at face value for their ingenuity, I find them remarkable and an excellent of what we can do if need be to be more self sufficient.
ReplyDeleteSomething wicked this way comes and while being in Los Angelos just means that when push comes to shove, everyone will steal your garden food, it is a good start of an attitude we need. I'm sure moving to wherever they have chosen will be a wise personal move and they will do as well as anyone can on this insane planet.
Dennis