GUARD DOG
DOG FOR SALE
Dog For Sale: free to good home.
Excellent guard dog.
Owner cannot afford to feed him anymore, as there are no more thieves, murderers, or molesters left in the neighborhood for him to eat.
Most of them knew him as ‘Holy Shit!’
First, an email from Sandra Downs describing her dream last night, which I read as Heaven’s view of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office’s record keeping practices, and, let us hope, Heaven’s intent to bring the truth into the light of day. Then follows an email exchange yesterday with someone on my Keys email list, about my running for the County Commission.
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“I had a dream that professional people were going through MCSO paperwork. There were discrepancies everywhere in their reports vs. what actually they had to back up what they said. The more the investigators dug through the papers, the more astonished they were how words did not match any data. I was watching them go through the papers, and standing back satisfied they were finally looking.”
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“I wish you would run against anyone else besides George N as HE IS NOT ONE OF THE THREE and if you win we still be 3 against 2.”
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“Oh, my. Seems you opened a, hmmm, can of worms?”
“??? I ran against George in 2006, when I lived on Little Torch Key, which lies in his County Commission District. His 4-year term has two more years to go. In March last year, I moved back to Key West, Sonny McCoy’s District. His term in office is ending and I’m running for his seat. Sylvia Murphy’s and Dixie Spehar’s terms also are ending. County commissioners are voted on at large/county wide by all registered voters. Candidates for the County Commission, however, can only run for the county commission seat in the district where they live. My recent tryst with George viz a vie Sandy Downs/the Goodmans was not about his seat. It was about something very serious and hurtful that happened in his District that he, as a county commissioner, could have jumped on when he learned of it. At least, that’s what I would have done, if I wuz in his shoes. Instead, George attacked Sandy and Jerry Coleman, and me, and blindly defended his friends, the Goodmans. When Sandy offered again to sit down with him and show him the evidence she has, he first said okay, then he said he preferred not to get involved. I’d not seen this side of George before, and was left not feeling much better about him than I feel about the Gang of Three. I’ve been a cautious about Sylvia Murphy since the day she took office and did not participate in Mario Di Gennaro being selected Mayor, while she was off in a corner of the room enjoying her coronation party arranged by Kay Thacker and others. I had gotten onto Kay about that party ahead of time. I told her Sylvia would have a hell of a lot more important things to be doing at that county commission meeting, her first one, than attending a coronation party. Later, Sylvia told me she was glad she wasn’t involved in Mario becoming Mayor, because she wanted him as an ally on the county commission. Kay didn’t seem fazed, either, by Mario becoming Mayor, but she probably got sort of fazed when he had her ejected by a deputy sheriff from a county commission meeting for simply given a thumbs down response to something the county commission decided to do. And Sylvia and George just sat there saying nothing, like the First Amendment really hadn’t been trampled to death right their under their very noses by Mayor Di Gennaro. I’d have I hard time, were I in Kay’s shoes, feeling too chummy with Sylvia and George after that, but I wasn’t in her shoes and she stayed chummy with them. As I wrote maybe ten days ago now, Sylvia got Mario appointed Mayor, by not being there to vote against it with George, creating a 2-2 tie, which Mario could not break, as he was the candidate. George was in on it too, for not going and getting Sylvia out of her coronation, to vote with him. Instead, he went along with Dixie and Sonny. Don’t see how either George or Sylvia, or Kay, later had any standing to complain about Mario’s ensuing behavior as Mayor, separate and apart from his actions as a county commissioner, another wee concern. The other day, I read in Key West Citizen where Sylvia had lectured the public audience at the last county commission meeting, who opposed Frank Rego going on the Tourist Development Council, about there only being two things to consider: (1) Was Rego’s appointment properly before the County Commission? (2) Did the County Attorney say Rego met the legal requirements to be on the TDC? If so, that’s all there was to it. What? How about the fact that most of the information Rego provided about his work history apparently was not able to be confirmed with prior/current employers, so maybe he didn’t exactly tell the truth about it? How about the fact that Rego was Mario’s candidate, and who can trust Mario about much of anything, thus trust Mario’s candidate? Sylvia doesn’t go about things that way. She seems to live by a set of narrow rules that have no room for common sense and street smarts. Who would vote for any person Mario wants on the TDC, or anywhere, who’s been around the Keys for the past two years?, is what I’m driving at. Yet George also voted for Rego, even after I tried to talk him out of it. He told me ahead of the vote that he voted for political appointees of other commissioners, even though he did not like them, unless they were clearly unqualified. It was a tradition to do that, he said. Didn’t I agree with that protocol? Gosh, tradition is more important than what is good for the TDC and the Keys? Gosh, George complains a lot about the Gang of Three, yet he rolled over when Rego was chosen by Mario, he rolled over when Mario was made mayor, and he rolled over when the County Commission decided to stick with Jerry Coleman before the end of last year, even though George had publicly said he didn’t want to do it. After he had gone along with it [keeping Jerry], George told me he hadn’t “wanted to make a frontal assault.” So he went down quietly, instead of voting No for the record. Same with Mario becoming Mayor and Rego going onto the TDC. Maybe we all should take a break to throw up in respect to trying to all get along and keep our dear sacred traditions alive? Maybe this is why I find myself feeling like if I end up on the County Commission, it will be a 4-year war — 1 against 4 — because I don’t see me getting along too well with George and Sylvia, either. But then, maybe Sylvia and Dixie could be replaced by people I can get along with better? Or maybe I’ll be kidnapped by a school of alien mermaids and hauled in their swimship off to Neptuna to live happily ever after, or whatever happens when you are abducted by mermaids? Or maybe I’ll just be bumped off. Now that’s a thought. Instead of trying to figure out how to get it on with mermaids, I’d be outta here. Whew! Just joking. Well, sort of.”
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“So glad to hear you are running against McCoy — good luck.”
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Well, so much for garnering sympathy. Maybe this pen pal should run for the County Commission? How easy it is to speak from the audience. How truly different it is to be on stage. How truly different. SB
Yesterday, Sandra Downs spoke with Assistant State Attorney Cathy Vogel about the abduction of five teenage boys by Monroe County Sheriff Deputies. One of the boys was Sandy’s son, Preston. They were taken from school and/or their homes and hauled in Deputy Sheriff vehicles to jail and held incommunicado in the adult population for most of the day, with no phone calls to their parents to let them know where their sons were, until it was decided by the Sheriff’s Office to tell the parents. These arrests and abductions were made without warrants, over the objections, in some cases, Sandy being one of the cases, of the parents. Sandy kept asking the five deputies who came to her home that morning in three squad cars, as she was cooking breakfast, and snatched Preston out from under her, where was their warrant? Show the warrant? They said they had a warrant, but they did not show it. They did not have a warrant. A warrant was never produced. There never was a warrant.
This was made known to the State Attorney’s Office. Yet, the State Attorney’s Office did nothing about what the Sherriff‘s Office had done. In the case of Sandy’s son, Preston, the State Attorney took the case to trial, charging him with criminal trespass at Sugarloaf School. The same grounds it used to abduct and hold the other four boys incommunicado as well. Yet in Preston’s case, the State Attorney’s Office had no evidence putting Preston at the School that day, where several boys were playing hide and go seek. Not only that, the State Attorney knew it had no evidence, not one witness who could put Preston at Sugarloaf School. Not one deputy, not one of the other boys, no one who worked at the school, ever placed Preston at the school. Yet the State Attorney prosecuted Preston anyway, caused his mother to hire a lawyer, Sam Kaufman, to defend Preston. And when the case was heard before a visiting judge, maybe we should say thank goodness for that, the judge was given no evidence of Preston’s guilt and the case was nolle prossed.
When Sandy went with Dennis Reeves Cooper, Publisher of Key West The Newspaper, to State Attorney Chief Prosecutor Jeff Overby about the abduction of five minors by the Sheriff’s Office, Jeff said he would not investigate, he decided what cases he would investigate. When Sandy spoke with Assistant State Attorney Cathy Vogel yesterday, Cathy asked Sandy what she wanted done? She said she wanted the people responsible investigated and prosecuted for false imprisonment. Cathy laughed, said Sandy had no idea how many cases of false imprisonment there are in this county. There is no recourse. In relating all of this to me yesterday, Sandy said the statute of limitations had run anyway. It’s three years, she said, for false imprisonment. How convenient, I said. All the way around, how convenient. The statute had not run when Sandy went to see Jeff Overby. I wanted to chew nails.
Let’s look at this case again. Sandy already described it fully in her Guantanamo story, which is found at sandyforsheriff.com and in the Believe It Or Not file of goodmorningfloridakeys.com. A story Sandy wrote, after she no longer could not not write it. A story she repeatedely offered, through me, to be polygraphed about. A story of five boys kidnapped by law enforcement officers and held incommunicado. Pure and simple, they were kidnapped. Kidnapping used to be, probably still is, a capital felony under state law where I come from. There is no statute of limitations. A capital felony committed here in the Keys not only by the deputies who did it, but by their superiors who ordered it, and by their superiors who backed them up later, or covered up for it. And committed by the State Attorney, who approved the court prosecution of Sandy’s son, Preston, not having a shred of evidence against him, and knowing it; and by the Assistant State Attorney, who actually handled the prosecution. Guilty as accomplices after the fact.
Just as a visiting judge was arranged, by God, I’d wager, to hear the false charges against Preston, an out-of-county Prosecutor is needed to investigate and bring these felons to trial. There is no dispute what happened. Sandy has the records to prove it, even though it seems that pretty near all the records in the Sheriff’s Office conveniently no longer exist. She conveniently made copies before the convenient disappearance.
Accordingly, I’m sending a copy of this post to Bill McCollum, Florida Attorney General, Governor Charlie Crist, former Attorney General, the Florida Supreme Court, and the Florida State Bar Association Lawyer Disciplinary Section. I ask these officials, after they get this far in their reading, to go back and read it all again, but this time, put their own names in place of Sandra Downs’ name, and the names of their own children and grandchildren, and the names of their brothers and sisters’ children and grandchildren, in place of Sandra Downs’ boy, Preston, and the other boys who were kidnapped. Then, having done that, get down to work.
As they work, let them ask themselves why Preston was kidnapped and held incommunicado and prosecuted even though there was not a shred of evidence against him? And let them keep ever in mind that Sandy and her family had no difficulties with the Sheriff’s Office or the State Attorney’s Office before Sandy reported her neighbor, Phillip Goodman, to the Department of Environmental Protection for cutting (slaughtering is more accurate) mangroves on a state-own island near his home. When nothing happened, Sandy went to Tallahassee about it. After Tallahassee got upset about it, Phillip Goodman and his family finally learned what Sandy had done, and then began the terrorizing of her and her family.
The Goodmans are the top of the Republican Party food chain in the Keys, directly under which sits Sheriff Rick Roth and State Attorney Mark Kohl. Yes, I’m telling the high public officials named two paragraphs above to investigate and prosecute Phillip Goodman, as the head of this terrorist cell, and the entire cell. And I’m asking the State Bar Association and the Florida Supreme Court to investigate and disbar State Attorney Mark Kohl and the Assistant State Attorney who prosecuted Preston, both knowing there was not a shred of evidence against him. In investigating the Goodmans and State Attorney Kohl and Sheriff Roth, I suggest that the Prosecutor offer immunity from prosecution to the smallest fish, in exchange for their testimony against the bigger fish.
If nothing comes from this request, I will take all of this to the United States Attorney and F.B.I., for investigation and prosecution of all principals and aiders and abettors under various federal criminal statutes, including but not limited to federal civil rights criminal laws and the RICO Act. I might even ask for an investigation and prosecution of Governor Crist and Attorney General McCollum, who have been kept up to date with all of this shit by email.
Sloan Bashinsky
Key West resident/voter
Inactive member, Alabama State Bar Association
Former law clerk to the Honorable Clarence W. Allgood, United States District Judge, Northern District of Alabama, who presided over every criminal case brought by the U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Alabama. A gooder man I never knew.
My dreams since yesterday’s post, Stump.Stump, leave me feeling the angels sympathize with Bonnie Stump’s story in that post. Likewise, a dream Sandra Downs had the night before the post, about Judge Sandra Taylor, who had issued the Order declaring Tom Stump dead. The dream in Sandy’s words:
“Judge Sandra Taylor was there. She said she had done all she could for the Keys. She had tried her best to keep the honesty here, by sitting as Judge but she was done and couldn’t help us anymore. She was troubled about leaving the bench to possibly be taken by corruption. She was very troubled about her retiring. She didn’t seem to think it was going to be OK. We asked her if she could stay on the bench and she said, ‘No’ she couldn’t.”
Translated, Judge Taylor’s Order was the best Heaven could do to bring the Stump case to a close. And it isn’t looking good for the justice system in the Keys.
Sandy had another dream the same night. In her own words:
“The man named Mr. Goldman strided through the front doors at the fine hotel ignoring the greetings of the concierge. He was pulling a little travel case with his laptop and such, an overcoat, thrown over his arm. He made his way in a hurry toward the front desk. He now had his back turned to me. He was checking in at a very fine hotel ( like the Waldorf Astoria, mahogany, large rugs, crystal, etc)) The front desk attendant did not question the authenticity of his 5 $100.00 bills, he couldn’t in front of Mr Goldman. Mr. Goldman was known for his arrogance and temper. The concierge knew Goldman would have him fired if he felt insulted or challenged.. but afer Mr. Goldman left, the front desk attendant took his marker and checked the bills as necessary. All 5 were counterfeit. One by one he confirmed, as the color of the marker showed the counterfeit bills. The feeling of the man was that all of Mr. Goldman’s wealth was counterfeit, and the well respected man was a fake. He was probably going to report it. He considered if Mr. Goldman trafficked in counterfeit currency. He suspected that is where he got his wealth, it was that he printed money. He was concerned to have to be the one to report this, who could he trust?”
“I was standing inside the lobby, with my back toward the walls. I was there secretly to watch Mr. Goldman. I had watched his entrance into the hotel, all of the “respect” he got, and now I had watched him pay with counterfeit money. I kept still and quiet so no one noticed me. Mr. Goldman had went to his room.”
This dream was about Phillip Goodman, Heaven’s way of sympathizing with Sandy and her family.
After reporting Goodman for cutting mangroves on a state-owned island near his home, Sandy and her family, especially her son Preston, suffered terrible persecution and threats from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office. I was convinced even before this dream that Phillip Goodman and his family somehow were behind the persecution, and felt that Preston’s soul chose to be electrocuted and leave this world in that way, instead of being murdered by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office or put in prison by the State Attorney’s Office for crimes he did not commit.
I told Bill Becker yesterday that this case is enormous. Major crimes were committed by the Sheriff’s and State Attorney’s Offices. I said it’s important for Bill and other journalists to dig into this, because we are electing a new Sheriff and State Attorney this year. One of the sheriff candidates, Bob Peryam, is a Captain in the Sheriff’s Office. His law enforcement education credentials are suspect. His moral behavior as a law enforcement officer is suspect. His wife, Cindy, was head of Internal Affairs when Sandy Downs went to her armed with a mountain of documents and a tape recording of a Sheriff’s detective threatening a teenager and his friends, especially Preston, with prison or death, if the teenager did not make up something that made his friends, especially Preston, criminals. Cindy Peryam declined to investigate. She still is head of Internal Affairs. If Bob Peryam is elected Sheriff this case will never be solved and the ones responsible brought to justice. Nor will a much needed general housecleaning in the Sheriff’s and State Attorney’s Offices occur.
When I asked Bill if he and Bernie are close friends with Bob Peryam, Bill said they are not, they do not socialize, and Bob is just a one of Bernie’s patients. When I then asked Bernie by email if she and Bob Peryam now are or ever were close friends, I received no reply. Bill once studied in a Catholic seminary. Bernie said many times on the telephone day before yesterday how much she loves God and how God got her and her children through Tom Stump’s disappearance. Bill and Bernie know the story of Jonah. They know God sometimes speaks to people in dreams and visions. They know the Lord giveth with the one hand and taketh with the other. Judge Taylor gave Bill and Bernie and her children a new life. Now Bill is being called to help God give Sandra Downs and her family a new life in return.
“And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.”
After publishing yesterday’s Fishing.Fishing, I felt moved to check my junk mail box and saw an email from Rose Stump, whose son Tom mysteriously disappeared some years ago in the Keys. Rose has not heard from him since, nor, apparently, has anyone who knew him. Another Keys intrigue, compounded by Tom’s wife later moving in with and marrying US 1 Radio News Coordinator Bill Becker, which spawned even more speculation about what really happened to Tom.
Rose wanted to know what would be the cost of publishing on my website a short add asking anyone who has information about her son to contact her by email. I replied that I’d lost a son in infancy and know how it feels. I said goodmorningkeywest.com and goodmorningfloridakeys.com are not commercial websites and I’d be glad to publish her ad for free, but I wanted to sleep on it to see what was the best way to do it. I added that I was sending a copy of my reply to Sandra Downs, who also had lost a son and knew what that was like. I did not tell Rose that it was through Sandy that I first came across Rose, when she emailed Sandy after her website was hacked. US 1 Radio interviewed Sandy about it and ran the interview all the next day, catapulting Sandy and her website into the public limelight. Into Rose Stump’s life.
The file on Sandy’s website that was hacked and destroyed, “My Experiences With Injustice,” was about five boys being persecuted by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. One of the boys was Sandy’s son Preston, who later was electrocuted while working with one of his brothers and their stepfather trimming trees near a power line that experienced a sudden power surge. Their business is Tarzan’s Tree Service, and Sandy’s husband Nick is Tarzan. Nick was at a store buying sodas for him and his stepsons when Preston was killed. Sandy, Nick and her family then were investigated by the Sheriff’s Office for murdering Preston, even as Preston was prosecuted by the Sheriff’s Office posthumously on charges against him that a judge had already dismissed.
Wasn’t long after replying to Rose yesterday that Sandy and I spoke on the telephone. When I said I’d just found an email from Rose Stump in my junk mail box, Sandy exclaimed that she needed Rose’s email address but could not get to it because it was locked away in her laptop which was recently messed up by a virus or hacker, causing Sandy to have to find other ways to work online. I told her to check her emails, and there she would find a copy of my reply to Rose with her email address.
This post is Rose’s ad requesting information about her son’s whereabouts. It’s heading to the Today’s Cock-a-doodle-doo file at goodmorningkeywest.com and the Fla-Key Drivel file at goodmorningfloridakeys.com. And to the Coconut Telegraph file of goodmorningkeywest.com, and to keylargokey.com. The “Keys Politics” file on that last website has a pretty rough and diverse commentary on Tom Stump’s disappearance. It’s a terrible thing all the way around. It needs to be resolved, for everyone’s sake. For everyone’s sake.
Rose Stump can be contacted at mamarose7251@copperfast.com.
Day before yesterday, County Commissioner George Neugent’s Executive Assistant contacted and told Sandra Downs that George wanted her to make an appointment to come to his office and show her evidence (of his friends, the Goodmans, illegally cutting down a state-owned island of fifteen-foot-tall red mangroves to have a better view from their three-story home on Cudjoe Key). Yesterday, George himself told Sandy that he preferred not to be involved. He did not accuse her of being a liar, this time. Ironically, that’s what I told George to do after he started blasting me about reporting on Sandy’s interview on Jerry Coleman’s radio show (Island 107). I told George to back off, get out of the way, he was too close to the situation; and quit calling Sandy a liar. Maybe I should send George a bill for legal services rendered. Just joking.
Moving along, but to where at 1 a.m.? I suppose I’ll have to go back to sleep and be told where, since I’m far too stupid to figure it out on my own. Far too stupid. But then, whoever said bait shrimp have brains? We just bat our eyes and wiggle our antenna and tails to draw attention to ourselves from passing fishes. A hell of a way to make a living, getting our legs and arms and antenna gnawed off day and night. And sometimes our heads and tails, too. Good thing we are like lizards and can grow back our missing pieces. Otherwise, there’d be no hands and fingers to write fishing tales about the big ones that got away.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Yawn. Hmmm, I’m now remembering some fishing stories that fell out of me about the same time what I wrote yesterday about writing fiction fell out of me. Writing I would never forget. Never.
“The boy’s father was a golfer, could have been a pro but went to work for his father’s business instead. He did not understand why his son loved to fish. He wanted him to learn to play golf, said it was good for business, all business deals are made on the golf course. The boy loved his father, took up the game that is an X-ray of the soul. He only beat his father once, when he cheated. He loved golf, but in his soul he was a fisherman. There was no way to cheat. One on one, him and the fish, winner take all.”
“The boy’s uncle was the greatest fisherman in the world. When he asked his mother why his father’s brother was not his father, they both loved to fish and his father did not?, she said she did not know why. Later, she said he had hurt his father’s feelings. He felt terrible, wanted to die.”
“The boy’s mother did not know why he loved to fish, but she knew he would die if he did not get to fish. So she got his uncle and other men to take him fishing. And when no man was there to take him, she drove him to a lake with his tackle and a sack lunch and sodas. When she returned a dusk, sometimes he had a catch, sometimes not. He was happy just to have gotten to fish. She wanted him to be a priest, but he knew priests catch souls for the church, while fishermen catch souls for God. His mother did not know that the fish were God, the lake was their church, the boy was the congregation, and when they had taught the boy to fish, they would send him forth to be a fisher of men.”
(Excerpts from A CRAZY PERSON’S BIBLE, published March 1994)
I learned over the years that fishing in salt water is no different from fishing in fresh water. There are many fish. Few rise to the bait. Even fewer take it. Even fewer are reeled in. Even fewer are landed. And even fewer survive being released. Lots and lots of big ones get away. Lots and lots.
My mother had no fucking idea what she was promoting when she pushed me to be a priest. No fucking idea.
Just below is an article about Jim Hendrick’s presentation to Coffee & Books in Marathon a couple of weeks ago. I wrote to the journalist and said he’d truly captured the spirit of the Keys and how important our libraries are. How truly important. My dreams last night told me to write some about writing today, which follows this wonderful piece by Rob Busweiler.
Cast of characters draws attention to worthy cause
Living in the Keys, you frequently stumble upon the “only here” moments.
Two months after moving to here, I was dispatched to a 20-ton sperm whale that had beached itself off of Big Pine Key. “Only in the Keys,” I thought to myself.
Three days later I received a call, and was told the now-dead whale had broken free of its tow and washed back, this time planting itself firmly in the shallow waters near the south end of the Seven Mile Bridge. There it would stay until nature did the job the feds had paid several thousand dollars to attempt to accomplish: Disposal of the carcass. It may have taken several months, but you get the idea.
Only in the Keys.
The list goes on, but last week another one of those moments sprung up, as a former county government attorney convicted last year in federal court of obstruction, witness tampering and conspiracy, Jim Hendrick, was the featured speaker during the regular Friends of the Marathon Library lecture series.
It wasn’t so much that a convicted felon, who is currently appealing his case, was speaking about the influential books he has read during his life, but rather the scene it created.
Standing at the podium, Hendrick rattled off book after book. Sitting 15 feet away was frequent political candidate — currently running for Monroe County Commission — and blogger Sloan Bashinsky, who gave a lecture for the library series last month.
Hendrick revealed that he and Bashinsky frequently play chess. The dichotomy of their relationship seemed something that could only exist in the Keys. During his lecture, Hendrick spoke of meetings with the religious and literary luminary buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Bashinsky, on the other hand, says his blog postings are influenced by angels that speak to him during dreams.
The two couldn’t be more different, yet here they were laughing about a relationship that could only be born in the Keys. Further adding to the scene was the self-proclaimed voice of the little people, “Bicycle” Joanie Nelson. A Keys character in her own right, Nelson — who is running for a seat on the Marathon City Council, as she has every year since the City incorporated in 1999 — joked around with Hendrick before the lecture and seemed excited about the discussion. It was like a scene out of a Fellini movie.
Hendrick’s lengthy discussion about the experience of spending three weeks in a federal penitentiary certainly qualifies as uniquely Keysey, and more importantly advanced the cause of a vital Keys service.
Stories along the lines of Hendrick, Bashinsky, Nelson — and even rotting whales — help make this community what it is, for better or worse. And it’s hard to deny that the sponsor for the series, the local library system, is a vital part of our own story here in the Keys.
Next month the series will continue and another Keys character will take the stage. The library needs all the help it can get due to recent budget cuts, and hopefully the attention given to this cast of Keys characters can help that cause.
Rob Busweiler is a staff writer for the Marathon and Big Pine Free Press. Contact him by e-mail at rbusweiler@keysnews.com.
A few days ago, after pining my ears back pretty good at chess again, Jim Hendrick asked me about my writing. Did I know ahead of time what I’m going to write about? Essentially, no, I said. Although every now and then I write something the day before that ends up being published, usually, I said, I have no clue when I turn in at night what I will write the next morning. Oh, I might look back and see signs leading up to it, which I might have seen if I’d been paying attention perhaps. Which is the case with this piece today. There were signs yesterday and even before, but I didn’t see them until after the dreams last night and earlier this morning. I think I said that since I started running for the county commission against George Neugent in 2006, I had written almost non-stop. Never had it been this heavy.
I told Jim that he would write if and when he was supposed to write. The Muse would see to it. I described a time when I was asked to present at a writer’s workshop once up one a time. I was toward the end of writing the fourth book that literally forced its way out of me, like the three previous books had done, like maybe fifteen more books of different sizes, flavors and shapes would later do. Unexpectedly. I went to the workshop with what I felt was a clever agenda, which didn’t seem to strike many of the participants as clever however. On the second day, I told Jim, I was asked a question that seemed to frame the reason I was there.
The question was, “What do you do about writer’s block?”
I said I don’t get writer’s block. When I’m supposed to write, I have to write. When I’m not supposed to write, I need to be doing something else. If I try to write when it’s not there, all that comes out is garbage. Maybe I’m writing in my soul or subconscious and later it will force itself to page, but until then I should be doing something else. I told Jim that suddenly I felt horns growing out of my head, or being put there maybe by some of the people in the workshop.
No, I said, when asked if I didn’t get up and sit at my typewrite or computer for so many hours each morning. No, I don’t to that. There’s no point. If I’m to write, I have to write. I might write all day, or for a few hours, but there’s no stopping it when its there, and no making it happen when it’s not. I told Jim that I told them not everyone is a writer, that wanting to be a writer has nothing to do with it. Maybe they were artists, instead, I told them, or something else. Not the kind of thing one usually hears at writers workshops, I told Jim, and encouraged him to write when he felt it was time.
I dreamt last night of my last novel, HEAVY WAIT: A Strange Tale, which I gave to Jim before his trial began. I then found myself somewhat intrigued by how some of the latter part of HEAVY WAIT paralleled how Jim’s case went and later. Somewhat. I suppose only someone who actually had practiced law could write a book like HEAVY WAIT, which is about a very successful trial lawyer and two women mostly, who had some pretty strange experiences indeed; strange by the measure of this world, not so strange by the measure of the worlds I have come to know. Not so strange at all by those worlds’ measures.
I gave several copies to the Monroe Library last year for its various branches, and I suppose they are still in the library system. It was published by PublishAmerica, a print-to-order publisher, on their dime. Their website is PublishAmerica.com, and it’s easy to order online. The book begins with the publisher’s caveat: “At the specific preference of the author, PA allowed this work to remain exactly as the author intended, verbatim, without editorial input.”
How that came about is PA offered three timelines for the book being published: fast without editorial input, medium fast with copyediting, slow with full editorial input. My early books had full editorial input, and I was an easy author for editors to work with and appreciated their input. Later books had less and less editorial input because I was publishing way far-out material and self-publishing. None of the newer writing, including the first three novels, was literature by the classic definition, and, yes, none of it was school book perfect. Nor is HEAVY WAIT. If you want classic literature and school book perfect, forget it. I was told in dreams to use the fast method of publishing, and so that’s how it ended up going that way. Just as the book itself was ignited by a dream and other strange experiences.
If you want a ride that will turn you every which a way but loose, as it turned me every which a way but loose, and the three main and most of the bit players every which a way but loose, then proceed at your own risk. And, if and as you read it, if and as you find yourself wondering just how much of it might be really true, ask yourself how someone could really make something like that up if it wasn’t really mostly true?
Yeah, it’s just a fishing story. Yeah, it just fell out of me in six weeks, ker-plop!!! Yeah, it has symbolism in it. Yeah, the author is deeply involved in it. Just as Ernest Hemingway was deeply involved in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, even though he adamantly insisted to his editor that he was not, or that there was any symbolism in the story. The Old man was an old man, the boy was a boy, the sea was the sea and the fish was a fish, Hemingway insisted in a letter to Max Perkins, published in Carlos Baker’s compilation of Hemingway‘s correspondence. I told the people at the workshop that THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA was Hemingway’s suicide note, which was the clever thing I went there to tell them. That, and there is no way to make up a story out of nowhere. Everything a writer writes is about the writer, even if the writer doesn’t know it.
As I later wrote in one of the way far-out books no editor would ever see, “Although he sometimes tries to write fiction, when the tale is done, every character is a character in himself, every plot a plot in himself. There are no surprises. Only his surprise to discover parts of himself he has lost, forgotten, thrown away or never even knew were there. In this way perhaps he and God are somewhat alike. They both create to discover just who and what they really are.”
Following is the text a series of email exchanges from an amigo, centered around these recent back-and-forths between County Commissioner George Neugent and me.
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I’ll say one thing for George, at least he keeps the dialog open…..that’s to his credit. Not hip to his politics/affiliations but maybe he is open to change as he seems to be trying to get you to be, so he seems pliable, maybe someone “in the system” that could be turned, like a big fish heading out to sea…d
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Maybe, but George is not going to turn me and I ain’t holding my breath on God turning him. I’m just the bait shrimp God used to get a nibble or two. I told George privately to back off, get out of the way, he was too close to this thing with the Goodmans and what was done by them, although I probably can’t prove it, to Sandy and her family through the Sheriff’s and State Attorney’s Offices. These are seriously bad people, the Goodmans and their Republican confederates, and George is in the verge, if not already there, of merging all the way with them, thus with what is running with them, which down Costa Rica way, where you now are headed, is called El Diablo. I wish I wuz joking, but I’m not. It’s my line of work to know such things, sadly.
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yeah, i see that but he seems sorta open to what your saying [maybe I' reading into somethin that's not real?] I personally love you not hooking up with either party, understand your reasoning and hope that somehow, our two party bs get’s broken up by some maverick, which of course fit’s you, my friends have called me the same though it’s for lifestyle/business reasons, not political. It will happen, question is when, what spurs the public to open their eyes and really understand that the only way to really “change” is to really change! Off to the airport, d
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Many times have I been used as God’s bait shrimp. Many times have I see beautiful fish rise and take the bait. Many times have I seen them then fight like holy hell to get away, jump out of the water and violently shake their heads trying to throw the hook or break the line; or failing there, dive and run under the boat trying to break the line on the hull; or failing there, dive deep and sulk in the depths using the currents to help them wear the angler out or break the line or pull the hook out.
Sometimes the line breaks or the hook just pulls out down there, or when they are slowly and painfully brought back to or right at the boat. Sometimes they fight so hard they die at the boat. They fear the angler more than anything, which is the tragedy, because the angler is what they should fear the least. What they should fear is what inside of and around them causes them to fear the angler. That’s what they should fear, but they almost never fear that. They fear the angler, and that’s why they fight so hard.
It is understood that they have this fear, which is why they are given many chances to be brought to the boat and unhooked and released into a much larger and far more beautiful ocean than the one in which they have been swimming. But they do not look at it this way. They look at being brought to the boat as the very worse thing that could happen. Hell, to be blunt. The irony is, it is hell where they are when they rise to the bait, and it is hell that the angler then tries to coax them out of, using many ways to do that.
Every now and then a fish is caught and released into a larger and more beautiful ocean. Every now and then. Like, once in a few million hookups. The rest of the fish, the ones that get hooked up and get away or die trying, end up in a place much worse than where they were when they took the bait. For once God comes calling, there is no staying where a fish was before that event. The fish is either going toward a much bigger and more beautiful ocean, or the fish is going toward something much smaller and uglier than where the fish was when it rose to the bait.
Each fish is given many opportunities to be caught and released, because the alternative is so terrible. And because when the alternative comes to pass, these fish has no reason to complain it didn’t know better. It even try to make that argument, because it knows it messed up, and now it has to live with the consequences until it is decided it no longer has to live with the consequences. That decision comes from a tribunal over which the fish has no control, and some fish are a very, very long time hearing they have done their time. A very, very long time.
It is not as many people believe. It is not cast into stone, either you die and go to heaven, or you die and go to hell. When you leave this world you go where you were when you were on this world. Your next experience is the same experience you were having when you still had your human body. If this was understood and accepted by the human species, there would be no need for churches or religions. No need.
Any religious people who might read our emails, who still cling to the notion that it’s either-or, heaven or hell, might wish to consider once again the parable of the prodigal son. Consider the prodigal is Lucifer. Consider the parable a prophesy of Lucifer’s eventual redemption, thus every soul’s eventual redemption. Consider the distress of the prodigal’s older brother over his younger brother’s redemption. Consider the older brother the angels who never fell. Consider which of those two brothers is in heaven and which one is in hell at the end of the story? Then consider which of the two brothers they would rather be at the end of the parable: the tormented older brother, or the grateful prodigal?
Now let them ask themselves why they never heard this parable explained this way, or this fishing story, in church? Then let them ask themselves if they really think God is running their church? If they still believe that, they just threw the hook or broke the line, or died at the boat. Even if their church bears the name of a political party.
p.s. When I went online this morning, I saw that the copies of yesterday’s Minority.Report sent to the maybe a dozen county employees on my email list at their county email addresses were delayed in delivery.
Below is the text of an email yesterday from County Commissioner George Neugent, referring to earlier email correspondence between us, followed my reply, which might be classified as nuclear.
Sloan,
None of it was to be any sort of a joke, however, just as you include double entendres, satire and humor in your writings – I may be mistaken – sometimes I do too. Or at least try. And before I go any further, I think a lot of you and your opinions, although, in this case you’ve left me questioning how you could get so far out there with a couple of folks that have literally, with one Jerry Coleman and radio show, literally slandered some good folks.
As for your position on Rego? Why are you so hostile to Mr. Rego – hell I don’t know him beyond recognition and a hand shake. The criteria, not anything else, unless there is something I don’t know that you can add, will determine whether I vote for him. I mean, is he a pedophile, convicted felon – what’s up with your disdain for him? Just that Mario appointed him? As for, Mario the Mayor – you step out in front of fast trains, this was a done deal. I begged Dixie to take the Mayoral seat – I told her Mario wasn’t qualified and that Monroe county would suffer. Don’t vote for me Dixie but don’t let Mario serve – nothing, except the Hickory House & Vandenberg were accomplished under his administration/leadership.
Again, if she got what she wanted enforced why is she still railing on the Goodmans? Why is she railing on anyone? Why is she not just telling us what she is going to do as Sheriff when elected?
And, no I doubt very seriously if I will feel differently about any of her accusations.
And if you are going to run against Sonny – why don’t you run in a party rather than waste your time and money running as an independent? Ask Jerry Coleman, he ran as an independent, and independent can’t win. You’ve done it – got a death wish or just doing it to prove nothing? Run as a Republican, win, make a difference.
George
Evening, George.
You still defend the Goodmans. Keys people need to know that is your position, even though you have not seen and, it seems, now decline to see the mountains of evidence Sandy has in the past and has just recently again offered to show to you.
I don’t know Frank Rego from Adam. I read in Key West Citizen that he is Mario Di Gennaro’s choice. I already told you I don’t trust Mario any farther than I can throw him, and now add to that his big house in Marathon. Repeating what I also already said, I would not agree with appointing Rego and would vote No if I were on the County Commission, and would say why I was voting No, so it would be in the record: I don’t trust Mario, so I don’t trust Frank Rego, so I vote No.
Just as I would have voted No and said why when Dixie and Sonny put Mario in the mayor’s seat. So it would be in the record: Mario had no experience, was a joke, and should not be Mayor. But even before that vote, if had been you, I would have gone and gotten clueless “Queen Sylvia” (Murphy) out of her surprise “coronation party” Kay Thacker and others were throwing for her off somewhere else in the main meeting room at Harvey Government Center, and made Sylvia take a public stand on Mario being Mayor. I would have done that because I would not want anyone to think I had anything to do with Mario becoming mayor, and because I wanted the public to see how new-commissioner Sylvia voted. Keys people are entitled to know what position their county commissioners take on every single issue that affects them. Every single issue. Frankly, I don’t know how Sylvia lives with herself after she basically put Mario in the Mayor’s seat, by not being there to vote against it.
Maybe until now Keys people have not understood how you and Sylvia could have kept Mario out of the Mayor’s seat. You have not disagreed with me that if Sylvia had voted No, a 2-2 tie would have resulted, which tie only Mario could have broken. Nor have you disagreed with my view that procedurally Mario could not have voted for himself to break the tie. No Mayor would have been better than Mario. You knew he was bad news, I knew it, but as I said in the earlier email, Sylvia told me shortly after it happened, she had been advised by someone not to get on Mario’s bad side, to make him and ally, and she was glad she had not participated in the vote for him being Mayor. A hell of way for Sylvia to spend her first day on the County Commission. A hell of a way.
Whoever said Sandra Downs got what she wanted enforced? The Goodman’s chopped down the mangroves. Sandy wanted them to be stopped from doing it. Then she wanted them prosecuted for doing it. She got nothing she wanted, and plenty she didn’t want: her and her family being terrorized by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office.
Unbelievable, is all I can say, your saying you doubt you would ever believe Sandra Downs without even first seeing her evidence and talking to her. Unbelievable. Unbelievable that you have not called her to set up an appointment to see her of evidence, after she did everything she could once upon a time to show it to you and could not even get an appointment to see you. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Shit, George, what happened to Sandy and her family after they turned the Goodmans in is what happened in Nazi Germany.
As for Sandy talking of all of this instead of what she will do if she becomes Sheriff, she will do what she’s doing right now: chasing down criminals, and catching hell for it. She’s not getting paid for it now and does not have a sheriff’s office backing her up and protecting her and her family, which she might not have when she’s sheriff, because she’s going to clean house in the Sheriff’s Office if she’s elected. She said this to me, and that she’s been [one of] the few real law enforcement officers in the County for the past five years, and she doesn’t even have a badge. [”one of ” was inadvertently left out of the orginal email — my, Sloan’s error]
Can you imagine, George, what you and I write back and forth looks like to other people? Especially people not obligated to the Goodmans? Or to the Republicans? To people fed up with Mario, Dixie and Sonny? It looks like you aren’t really any different from the Goodmans, Mario, Dixie and Sonny. That’s what it looks like.
What possible reason could I have for wanting to become a Republican? So I could spread my legs wide and have a better chance of winning against Sonny McCoy? Why not join a Satanic Cult instead? For that’s what I’m looking at on the Republican totem pole: the Goodmans, the County Commissioners, State Attorney Mark Kohl, Sheriff Rick Roth. Please don’t take this as a joke or double entendre, George. It’s not either. It’s what I’m looking at: a Satanic Cult.
And because I’m looking at it, I’m wondering what in the name of God is wrong with Kim Wigington running as a Republican against Dixie? Doesn’t Kim see the slime she’s wallowing in by being a Keys Republican? How can she accept Republican support and money knowing what’s at the top: the Goodmans and the County Commission? Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
Of 22,000 votes cast when I ran against you in 2006, I received just over 7,000. Me, an unknown, with no campaign committee or workers, no party advertising for me, no campaign mailings, posters, buttons. 7,000 people voted for me, an Independent, and maybe I knew one hundred of them somewhat, and perhaps five of them pretty well. 7,000 Keys people wanted to see me instead of you in office, George. 7,000 Keys people. In 2006.
I would not be able to face myself in the mirror if I became a Republican, or a Democrat, just to get a party behind me, just to give me a better chance of winning. I’m a person, not a can or a crat. I answer only to my conscience and God, and not to a political party or other people. Often have I said you seem to me to be your own person, not in anyone’s pocket. I was mistaken, George. Mistaken. On both counts.
I would ask you to tell me, George, that the Goodmans and/or others did not put you up to trying to persuade me to become a Republican. To become one of them so they gain some measure of control over me, in case I end up beating Sonny, and to get me away from pushing Sandra Downs down the Republicans’ throats. But I won’t ask you that. I’ll just say it, so anyone who reads this will know how I’m looking at this offer you made.
And so they will know you were seen and heard talking yesterday with Debby Goodman and Mario at a Republican function at the Marathon airport, and Debby was visibly upset and asking what was going to be done about what Sandy and I are doing about the mangroves? What’s going to be done is we are going to try to get Debby and her husband put in the penitentiary. And maybe some other Republicans, too. That’s what is going to be done.
I told you in an earlier email, George, that I have dreaded serving on the County Commission because of Mario, and now was feeling much the same way about being on the County Commission with you. I feel that way all the more after receiving this last email from you. All the more. All the more.
God help the Keys. God help Keys people. For it’s plain as day the Republicans will not. Plain as day.
Sloan
p.s. I sent this email exchange to someone elses besides Sandy, just in case I’m not able to publish it generally. Just in case. Yeah, George, that’s how I’m thinking. That’s how I’m thinking.
Below is County Commissioner George Neugent’s February 15 reply to the Different.Voices post of that day, followed by my reply.
Morning Sloan,
Since you post to GOD and everyone, literally, I feel compelled to respond to your comments.
First, You ain’t in my shoes – I am; and I am quite happy being there. One of the very clear commitments I made to myself before running for office was to come to grips with, that I was going from the private sector to the public sector and, if not in the proper mind frame, I would succumb to a disease that most who serve do – self serving and believing they have an importance beyond serving Monroe County and forgetful of the commitment we make to the voters, residents and property owners of Monroe County; this is just not something I can go to bed with knowing. A word(s) from the wise to me was [to have]: “The wisdom to learn and courage to protect the public’s interest.” The day I lose sight of that message is the day I’ll resign and go back to work in the private sector – and, I’ll do it with the knowledge that I lived up to a commitment I made to myself.
Let me say this about the Goodmans and the agencies of which you speak, and I’m a bit surprised, with you being an attorney, of your condemnation based upon one-sided-information that only you and Ms. Downs possess.
The Goodmans are good hardworking community oriented folks who have exhibited nothing but an undying love and commitment to the environment and success for this county. For you to be complicit in defaming their stellar character is unacceptable and disappointing to me Sloan. You owe them a public apology along with the other two duplicitous wackos of which you speak.
Now let’s get this straight, you and the other two wackos of which you speak, have on their condemnation list: George Neugent, Mark Kohl, Rick Roth, Gus Rios, the Goodmans, the FBI, the State Representative, The State Senator(of our district), Congresswoman Ilena Ros-lithenen, Dick Cheney – did I leave anybody out? And you and your two compatriot wackos, who are not card carrying yet, but it seems they want to at least measure up to your stature of “Card Carrying,” are well on their way. As for Sandy, you will notice out of the folks previously mentioned, I’m probably low person on the Totem Pole, however, if YOU can compile, as a crack attorney it should not be a problem – in fact – get that $500/hr. guy to help you, listing the accusations and evidence you have to prove Ms. Downs case, send it to my office and I will forward it to all those previously mentioned for a reply.
Best of luck and with kind regards, I remain
Sincerely,
The Honorable George R. Neugent
Monroe County Commissioner
District ll
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George, I had hoped this between us would go away, but it didn’t.
The photo at the top of today’s post, dated February 2, 2005, taken by the Department of Environmental Protection, is of the cut mangroves in front of the Goodmans’ home. The original application for cutting, filled out and signed by Debby Goodman in her own handwriting, is dated April 3, 2001. The reason she gave in the application was “trim mangroves for a view.”
Valentine’s Day’s post, Mangrove.Mamma, Sandy’s blow by blow story about what happened to her and her family after reporting the Goodmans, was emailed to your county commissioner and personal email addresses, and to Sheriff Roth and State Attorney Kohl, to whom that post was addressed higher up the totem pole. I had advised Sheriff Roth and State Attorney Kohl, and you, in earlier emails that Sandy was willing to be polygraph examined and show them her supporting evidence. At the end of Sandy’s Valentine’s Day story, also her birthday, was an invitation for anyone interested in seeing her supporting evidence at her home to make an appointment. Her email address and phone number were provided: sandy@sandyforsheriff.com, (305) 304-9303. She did not hear from anyone on the totem pole.
I told you that I will be happy to pay for the Goodmans’ polygraph examination by the examiner most favored by the F.B.I., and if they pass I eat crow and publish an apology they will have no trouble seeing is sincere and contrite, and if they fail I publish the results all over the place. I said if the Goodmans are standup people, they will accept my offer because that’s what standup people do: they move right into allegations and disprove or admit them. I also said I was having a lot of trouble with how your dealing with Sandy’s coming out again with what she already once tried to get something done about, and no one she went to in Keys for help, including you, did anything about it. Maybe something now will be done about it.
Sloan
guard-dog