Slowjamastan

A country from a travel ban

Randy Williams, known on air as R Dub!, hosts the syndicated Sunday Night Slow Jams radio show and says he has visited every country in the world, North Korea included.^[2][1] When COVID-era travel restrictions kept him home, he decided to turn travel on its head and bring a country to the United States instead.^[1]

He bought an 11-acre plot in the desert of Imperial County for $19,500 and declared it the Republic of Slowjamastan on 1 December 2021. His best friend, Mark Corona, became its Chief Porder Batrol, a play on words, as is the norm there.^[1]

“This looks like enough land for a country.”^[1]

The Sultan’s laws

The country’s rules come, Williams says, from “our Dear Leader’s values and visions and everyday annoyances experienced while growing up in America.”^[2] Crocs are banned (“fashion crimes are punished harshly”), as are mumble rap, reply-all emails and the improper eating of string cheese; raccoon breeding is allowed. It has its own currency, the Duble.^[1][2]

Anyone may apply for citizenship online, and a visa is required to enter the property.^[2] By its own records Slowjamastan has more than 35,000 self-proclaimed citizens.^[1]

Gary from the county

In 2026 Slowjamastan began a mock-documentary series on YouTube. Its first episode turned on Gary, a county inspector who, the Sultan complained, “marched into Slowjamastan” and tried to cite it for the height of its flag pole and for raccoon breeding. The hashtag #GoHomeGary trended; the Sultan, meanwhile, announced that the Salton Sea was now “the Sultan Sea”.^[1]