Jillette’s home is now United Church of Bacon headquarters — VIDEO
Last Sunday, the valley’s most colorful residence, “The Slammer,” played host to a fundraiser for the United Church of Bacon. The church, a satirical religion marshaled toward an atheist flock, now has a permanent home at Penn Jillette’s custom-made abode.
United Church of Bacon’s website says it is a “real, legal church.” The group raises money for charities. Attentive commuters may have seen the group’s billboards giving quotes from notable historical figures or quippy notes like “Bacon is our God because bacon is real.” Now, their central home, aptly named “the Nevatican,” will become a meeting place, a lecture hall and a library, all dedicated to the belief of nonbelieving.
The Slammer is certainly one of the more popularly documented residences in the Las Vegas Valley, with appearances on MTV’s “Cribs” and in just about every local news outlet and even some national news publications. Originally an A-frame in the middle of the desert, it quickly became a testament to a magician’s wild imagination and also contemporary modern design from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s.
The sprawling 7,932-square-foot home includes a lap pool, podcast studio, home theater, firepole, various cameras and locks, gym, secret door, pink mantis-headed Buddha, several human and animal skeletons (which had been used for medical education), likely a few curses and hexes and, of course, a full whirlpool bath.
The home at 7601 W. Wigwam Ave. sits on 10 acres. This spring, Jillette traded his funky bachelor pad for a family home in Summerlin’s upscale gated community The Ridges. The plan was to place the estate on the market for $2.1 million. But Jillette’s friend, founder and “prophet” of the Church of Bacon, John Whiteside, proposed a different idea. Why not have the famous magician donate the place to the Church of Bacon as a gift? Yes, The Slammer will be donated, but exactly how much of the 10-acre plot, if any, has yet to be worked out.
“A lot of people are saying ‘Why the hell are they trying to raise money? Why doesn’t Penn just give The Slammer to the Church of Bacon,’ and that’s a very good question, and the answer is, I did! So shut up, just shut up!” Jillette quipped on his podcast.
There is an Indiegogo campaign to draw from atheists worldwide to completely repair and retrofit The Slammer to become a full-fledged Nevadican community center.
“We need to raise about $500,000,” Whiteside said, “and that’s for total repairs and operating costs for the next few years.”
No small feat for the church, but they remain optimistic. With the turnout at this event, it is easy to imagine the slow drip of “tithe-paying” atheists bringing this dream to fruition, as Whiteside puts it.
The spot is not without signs of over two decades of wear. Three of the five air-conditioning units are in need of replacing, a large project to reinforce a good portion of the roof is necessary, and there’s the normal damage that a family of four (plus pets) can dish out. For this, a large funds drive is in order, with the first leg of it being the mass gathering last Sunday.
More than 1,000 people came out to tour the grounds of The Slammer, feasting on the church’s “sacred sacrament” of bacon donated by Whole Foods as well as barbecue from Pot Liquor CAS, and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. There was everything from a kid’s scavenger hunt, live podcast and musical performances by Jillette’s own aptly named No God Band, The Negative Nancys, DJ Lenny Alfonzo and The Sunday Assembly Band, a band that plays in the Church of Bacon’s “mass,” which is held alongside the United Coalition of Reason meetings at UNLV.
The Matt Donnelly and Paul Mattingly improv duo, who were co-hosts of Jillette’s Sunday School, also did a half-hour of improv comedy to warm up the crowd for the musical acts. Their pay-what-you-like “Bucket Show” takes place every Sunday at the Arts Square Theater on Charleston Boulevard and First Street behind The Artifice.
Jillette’s weekly podcast is Sunday School. In the live episode broadcast to the partygoers, he and the team went over topics like Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Communism, and of course, atheism. In his own words, the gathering was “a fun day of peace, love and no god.”
Unexpected guests were the cast members of “The Real World Season 31,” along with their crew, filming for an upcoming episode. One member, Christopher Hall, even spoke on the podcast about his experiences of being an “ex-Mormon.”
So far, the colorful life of The Slammer has died on the end of a rented Bobcat compact track loader. It seems to be divinely destined to continue on as a funky, art-filled and naturally self-satirical community center hosted by The United Church of Bacon.
