Good Morning Florida Keys

I dreamt of being offered a number of different kinds of edible berry clusters, ending with a cluster of blackberries. Of all the berries I was offered, the blackberries were the least tasty. On waking, I understood the dream was about our school system, which has issued what seems to many people, including me, an incredible number of Blackberries to school staff. Later dreams narrowed the focus down to the Acevedos and the McPhersons. Perhaps a careful search and investigation of cell phone and/or Blackberry calls between Monique Acevedo and Christina McPherson will unearth answers to some of the questions many Keys people now have about what went on at Key West High School. Christina is vice-principal there. The school principal has said he was totally unaware of anything Monique had in play, and it is hard to imagine she would be able to get those projects going without approval from either the school principal or Christina. If Christina was Monique’s supervisor, she needs to be thoroughly investigated about what she knew of Monique’s activities, and what she did or didn’t do about it, including what she reported to other people, especially to the school principal under whom she worked.
 
I have been very reluctant to get drawn into the school situation. However, Morgan is running for mayor of Key West again, as am I. If the McPhersons are involved with the Acevedos, the public should know that and the exact nature of the involvement. Just as the public should know Morgan and County Commissioner Mario Di Gennaro are bosom buddies and have meetings behind closed doors — Mario told me this himself about two months ago. Just as the public should know Morgan’s brother, Ben, is the Comptroller for Ed Swift’s company, Historic Tours of America, which brought us the Duck Tours case. Just as the public should know Morgan’s mother, Antoinette, used to work and perhaps still works for Swift’s company. Just as the public should know Morgan’s childhood friend, Tim Koenig, is the lawyer and a mover and shaker in Cortex, a substantial developer of dubious, at best, experience in the Keys. The people of Key West need to know the personal, political and business alliances of all candidates who want to be our elected officials.
 
You know what my alliances are: I write about them on a regular basis. Jim Hendrick, excuse me, Czar Hendrick, told me about a week ago that I should be saying Captain Tony and Captain Outrageous gave me their endorsements. I told Jim maybe they would do that in a dream, and maybe Captain Kidd would join them. Jim said he didn’t know Captain Kidd. Maybe a lot of people around here didn’t know him, but a lot of people did. Especially if they didn’t have much money. Especially if they ever lived on the street. Certainly they knew him, if they saw the movie, “Have You Seen Clem?” a superlative personal odyssey disguised as a “documentary” on homeless people, who were not exactly what they at first appeared to be. Captain Kidd played a leading role in “Have You Seen Clem?” which made its national and international debut at our very own Tropic Cinema. How an educated person in Key West could not know about Captain Kidd and “Have You Seen Clem?” which has run several different times at Tropic Cinema and got a lot of local press, is beyond my comprehension.
 
I’m having lunch at Salute today with Father Steve Braddock, and will give him a large print of the “Will Work for Loaves and Fishes” painting featured in an earlier post, which arrived yesterday from the artist, Deb Hoeffner. In 2003, Steve and Florida Keys Outreach Coalition took me in when I was near death from a MRSA infection. Also during this time, Steve and FKOC took in Captain Kidd in after he broke his leg and couldn’t take care of himself. Although I knew Captain Kidd already, it was then that I really got to know him. It also was then that Steve and then city planning commissioner Bill Verge urged me to run for mayor of Key West. Steve and I became friends. But, as Sandy Downs would later learn, as everyone who has been my friend has learned, I listen to advice I receive from other people, then I take it up with my spiritual tormentors. Sometimes they agree with what my friends have told me, and sometimes they don’t. And sometimes they tell me to do things nobody likes, including my friends.
 
So, you see from this narrative, the only alliances I really have are with my Creator and the angels assigned to turn me every which a way but loose. Sandy Downs has pushed me very hard to come out hard against the McPerhsons because of the Acevedos, and she will tell you that I have been very reluctant to get involved. Only when “nudged” by my spirit tormentors have I gone anywhere near the McPhersons and Acevedos. I dunno, maybe Captains Tony, Outrageous and Kidd appreciate this, now that they are in the afterlife. I don’t know for sure, because they haven’t come to me in a dream and told me yay or nay, or anything. But can you imagine them endorsing any candidate other than me?” Well, can you?
 
Sloan for mayor, Key West

Open Mic (Key West)

Yesterday was quite a day.I saw “Frost and Nixon” at Tropic Cinema. I knew nothing about the Frost and Nixon interviews, in which Richard Nixon finally was brought to face his own personally-created Armageddon. Where have I been living all of these years? I didn’t intend to be in the dark, but I was. What came to me walking to Sippin’ Internet Cafe this morning to write today’s post was, that I hoped David Frost, who apparently is still alive and working in television, will undertake to do the same thing for America via George W. Bush. Otherwise, the Good Ship America may sink out of sight.

Open mic at Sippin’ last night probably was best expressed toward the end of the three-hour affair by co-owner Penny Johnson, who told the entire gathering, “This is fucking incredible.” Indeed, it was. Never have I seen such talent and expression in Key West, which has plenty of talent and expression, until last night and the Sunday night before. Last night brought an old foggy into the fray, to remind the youngsters that some day they will be old fogies, too, so they had better go whole hog while they still have their faculties and youthful energy, if they want to be able to keep up with the likes of this performer when they are his age.

Me, I thought music and instruments was sissy stuff when I was a kid. What an idiot. So I’m left with writing, poetry and some sort of aboriginal art expression, to express my creativity. There were other poets there last night, youngsters. When their age, I thought poetry was sissy stuff, too. I read one of my older poems, then yesterday’s post, then this below, which I felt might not exactly suit the angels, or anyone, but it was how I felt when it fell out of me yesterday afternoon, and it was how I felt when I read it last night.

DIPLOMACY

So they say, my supporters –

If I really want to win,

Then I must campaign;

I must get organized,

Have campaign ads,

Use radio, television and newspapers,

Send out mailers, use posters,

Go knocking on doors,

Spend a lot of money –

Mine, I suppose,

Because I don’t hear them

offering to spend theirs,

Or offering to raise money

so I can do all the things

they tell me I must do –

TO WIN!!!

It’s apparently not enough

to have all the good ideas

they say I have;

It’s apparently not enough

to publish daily what

needs to be done to save

the Good Ship Key West

from the fate of the Ancient Mariner.

No, Alone I must do it all.

And to that I say

TO HELL WITH IT!!!

To that I say, if

They want me to win,

If they really want me as Mayor

of the Good Ship Key West,

Then THEY NEED TO GET ORGANIZED;

THEY NEED TO START

BEATING THE BUSHES,

PERSUADING EVERYONE THEY KNOW,

AND EVEN PEOPLE THEY DON’T,

TO VOTE FOR SLOAN FOR MAYOR.

YEP, THAT’S WHAT THEY NEED TO DO,

or forever hold their piece,

or is it peace — I get confused;

I suppose both can be held,

Even though it’s been a while

since I held either.

Meanwhile,

I suppose the beatings will continue

until morale improves.

Not long after that outburst, a young fellow from British Guiana, whose acquaintance I’d made, told the gathering about goodmorningkeywest.com and how he was going to be stirring up interest in my campaign. He’d told me that before, and I was happy to hear him go public with it. You probably have seen him around opening coconuts with his “cutlass” and giving them away. He has a jeep with all sorts of coconut stuff on and inside of it. One of the most all-round talented people I have ever met. He plays music, is an artist, has done major political organizing, with effect, in his native country, and he can climb coconut trees using just his hands and feet. I call him Randy, but he was born Randesh. His India ancestors came to the West Indies, specifically, Guiana during the British colonial period.
 
My dreams last night left me wondering if my little temper tantrum was okay with the election gods, or if I had pissed them off royally. Whatever, I can’t pretend to be what I ain’t, any more than a pig can pretend to fly when it can’t. But then, this is Key West and over my bed is an original painting by Candy Mense, graduate of the Art Behind Bars program, featuring pigs who really do fly. I have some advertising ideas for my campaign that just might put wings on a lot of critters around these parts that never knew they could fly. Just might.
 
Yeah, I told another joke last night, this one a female chauvnisit pig joke, to balance out the karma of the male chauvinist pig joke of the week before. Sorry, can’t tell them here. Might get me in trouble with the diplomacy god (weblink provider).
 
Sloan for mayor, Key West

Last Sunday night’s open mic at Sippin’ Internet Cafe was drop-dead world class. The master of ceremonies, Ebben, whose sweetie Leah warbles people clean off their barstools most week day lunch hours at Willie T’s, told Penny Johnson that tonight’s open mic will be even better. Hard to imagine, but then, I had no idea last week what a marvelous evening lay in store when I showed for and was roped into participating, as the token senior citizen. 7 p.m. tonight. 424 Eaton Street, real close to Tropic Cinema.
 
All of which, in a roundabout way, brings me to an email from Sam Kaufman, who is my lawyer and friend.
 
Sloan:
 
If you are serious about winning the campaign for mayor, why not get organized? Why have I not been invited to an organizing meeting?
 
Your friend and supporter,
 
Sam Kaufman
 
I’ve been through three ownerships of Sippin’, and that’s where we will hold the “organizational meeting.”
 
Since I sometimes say I’m a fool who rushed in where even angels feared to go, we will gather at the river April Fool’s Day (this Wednesday), 6 p.m. Public invited – Ya’ll come! You might even get to hear some local music talent (not me, I don’t do music). And maybe you might figure out a way to help me get organized. If you do, you will be the first to achieve what my mother and father, my school teachers and ministers, and my law partners and seven wives never pulled off. Not even sure God has much chance of organizing me, but you’re all welcome to try.
 
If it gets too crowded, we can adjourn to the nearby Post Office and interview some of the wild chickens that hang out there and roost in the big fichus and other trees. I tell you truly, many, many people come to Key West just to learn that real chickens can fly, and in spite of that, we still have people around here who want to deport all of our wild fowl to a chick-filet farm on the mainland. Can you imagine treating our very own national bird so disrespectfully? Can you imagine it?
  
See you April Fool’s at Sippin’, 6 p.m. 
 
Sloan for mayor, Key West.

More Bare Facts (Key West)

Below is a second email exchange with Richard Mason, President, South Florida Free Beaches/Florida Naturist Association. This time, it gets down to the nitty gritty.
 
 
 
Sloan:
 
Thank you for sharing  your emails with me on the subject of a “Designated Clothing-Optional Naturist Family Beach.”

The word “Family” used the the above description is not to be interpreted as excluding gays.  It is used to educate the public to the fact that a Naturist beach is inclusive of all including children. The Naturist Family, the Human Family and the Gay Family.
Gays have been strong supporters of Naturist beaches and we Naturists in “organized Naturism” have been strong supporters of Gay Rights and Gays’ reputations.
 
When I am lobbying in Tallahassee for Naturists, I find myself educating new legislators from rural counties on Gay issues. It appears that they are ignorant of Gays issues getting their only information from the organized religious right groups, (who are wrong on most issues).
 
Gay men are the best behaved of any groups of visitors to Haulover Beach.
 
The  enemies of Naturists are the same people who are the enemy of Gay & the GLBT on all their Civil & Human Rights Issues.
 
My Sensitivities:
 
The tactics used in Tallahassee by the enemies of Gays and Naturists  is to inform legislators that they must pass legislation to make mere nudity a crime because, at a beach where there is nudity, the Nudist and Gays love to prance around, exposing their genitalia to the public by going outside their assigned area, and20because of this there has to be a law, banning mere nudity.
Further, they inform legislators, that if you allow nudity at a beach, and because Nudists and Gays are exhibitionists, they will want to be exposing themselves at the supermarket, the schools and in the public streets.  They claim that the nudity leads to an adverse secondary behavior, which is the molesting of children and rape.
 
I’m not making this up. It is in the public record. 
 
That is why I may be sensitive to anyone stating that “naturists like to run around in the buff.
 
Words are powerful.
 
Remember what happens in Tallahassee does not stay in Tallahassee.
 
The Florida Legislature, which is heavily influenced by the people from North Florida, can pass a bill into law, without public scrutiny, that would have a negative effect on on tourism, a Naturist beach and Gay issues, in a split second, before anyone can marshal a response.
 
That is why SFFB/FNA maintains a paid lobbyist in Tallahassee and that is why I spend a week each session in Tallahassee and why I spend the rest of the year reading and watching legislators and their comments.
 
I interpreted from your first email that you were in favor of a naturist beach, and I thank you for that, but, after 20 years active in the battle, both in dozens of counties around the state of Florida, and a week a year in Tallahassee, and having my life threatened three times by the radical opposition,=2 0I have become sensitive to the image of Naturists, Nudists & even Gays.
 
I am not Gay, myself, “not that there is anything wrong with it”  to quote Seinfeld,  but we are in this together.
I also admire the political savvy that the Gay community has put together.  SFFB/FNA has been an early member of  Save Dade, a Gay political activist Group in the Miami area.
 
It has always been our hope that the greater community  would accept us Naturists (nudists) as having a serious place at the community table, seeking only equal rights and equal respect and to achieve that we must ask others to avoid the “cute little expressions and double entendre’s” that have been floating around the American common square, mostly because of America’s hang-up about nudity and their education into self-body shame.
 
We only ask that others work with us.  We want to be taken seriously by elected officials and park and police department officials
 
Thanking you in advance for your understanding of the way we are.
 
Richard Mason
SFFB/FNA.
 
 
Hi, Richard. I’m not at all surprised at what you have encountered. I’m from the Bible Belt originally — Birmingham, Alabama — and was raised by Puritans. Fortunately, I “escaped,” although it took God a pretty long while to flush it all out of and reinvent me. That I might have had an innate tendency to do a different drumbeat also probably helped. You do not have to go through Tallahassee to get a clothes-optional beach in Key West. It can be decided locally, except perhaps for the beach inside the nearby state park, Fort Zachary Taylor, which I have not mentioned so far. A newspaper journalist asked me about that possibility today: clothes-optional beachfront at Ft. Zach. He’s from Bixoli, Mississippi, and said a ranger at a state park on one of their barrier islands had made part of the beach he was looking after clothes-optional; all by himself he did it. The journalist looked me up because he wants to do an article on natural beaches. We talked about half-an-hour. This fellow gets all my posts, reads them. He’s an ally, but what his Editor will do with it, who can say? His Editor thinks I’m either crazy or the devil, or both, for stuff that has nothing to do with nature beaches (I wrote about him and said he should find another line of work.) Every little bit helps, though. I told the journalist that Jesus said we can’t worship God and mammon, but since Key West is so very much into mammon, God is using the lure of more tourists to try to persuade the city government to provide clothes-optional beaches here. That, and clothes-optional beachfront is completely in keeping with the spirit of Key West. The journalist agreed. You do not write in a way that causes me to feel you have spent much time in Key West. This place is really different. Why don’t you come down for a week, say in the Youth Hostel, if you need to travel economically. Get a feel for this place. Meet some people. Although I expect to get the kind of resistance from some quarters you described, I feel it will make it much more difficult if this is approached as an organization — yours – lobbying for what essentially are its and other groups spiritual beliefs and legal rights. And I’d leave off talking about allying with and defending Gays. Key West is viewed by gays here and most places as the most gay-friendly city in the world. Maybe 30 percent of our city population is gay. We have a gay city commissioner and a gay county commissioner [both of whom favor au naturale beaches]. Better here to simply say clothes-optional beaches are best for Key West, even if some people won’t like it. The journalist said Haulover Beach up your way was pulling in $150,000,000 (I recall) for your area. That’s what needs to be stressed to our local governments, which are really strapped and not coming up with any ideas other than looking to and begging from state, federal governments and grants, and raising local taxes, to make ends meet. That, and clothes-optional beaches are tame compared to Fantasy Fest in October, when men and women, gay and straight, prance around plenty on Duval Street with their gentalia sometimes hanging pretty darn far out. Sloan

Yesterday, I received a narrative from Sandy Downs describing a dream she had last summer, which I mostly had forgotten. Sandy feels the dream has to do with the current upheaval in our schools, and that might be part of it. It appears Monique Acevedo, wife of our Superintendent of Schools, Randy Acevedo, answered to Christina McPherson at Key West High School, and not to the school principal. Christina used to be in charge of the 9^th grade class where Monique’s alleged financial impropriety at the high school occurred. Christina is Mayor Morgan McPherson’s wife. Maybe there is something improper there, maybe not. A fine-toothed-comb investigation by the School Board and its hired auditors should get to the bottom of it. Beyond all of that, I felt all along that Sandy’s dream had to do with Monroe County and Key West, and the hungry children in her dream are the people of the Keys and Key West who are not being fed property by Mario and Morgan, who were Mayor of Monroe County and Mayor of Key West, respectively, when Sandy had the dream. It came to me yesterday, like from out of nowhere, to hammer away that a vote for Morgan in this year’s mayoral is a vote for Mario. You’d have to have just fallen off the turnip truck not to know that.
 
____________________________________
 
 
In the middle of the night/early morning for most folks…can’t sleep.I saw your missed call at 11:00 and figured it was too late to call, but I really felt you wanted to talk to me.Back to my gorilla dream….. Mario was there standing in the middle of a large and open field with Morgan the gorilla, and they were both in the field below the 2 story house where I was. I was in the upstairs kitchen, a very narrow room like a cupboard in a food pantry at a church….and I was at a counter and looking through all the scraps trying to find something edible for the children. The children were SO hungry!!! They were about 3 ft. from me, and came no closer because they knew I was working hard for them and they had to leave me alone if they wanted to eat. I had bruised and rotten fruits and vegetables to choose from, no meat. There was a helper in there with me, maybe it was Primbransky???

You were standing in mid air in the doorway and your feet were not touching the ground. You were ready to depart and go into the field, with 5 or 6 warriors dressed like you, and in waiting, behind you. They were floating around and had wings, more like they were hovering behind you. None was dressed as fierce or regal as you, though all of you had on all black. You had large and fierce wings and weapons and looked kind of like Batman in black and ready to fly. You were anxious. It seemed you were there to inspect the food and the conditions the children had been left in, so that you could justify what you were about to do, and I knew it was going to be a fight in the field, and you were going to destroy the men down there. You were watching me in the kitchen and you were angry about the children’s food. I had never seen you so determined and angry. And you spread wings on your back to go to battle, and your warriors followed you. And you were going to descend upon the two in the field, DiGennaro and McPherson.

DiGennaro and McPherson were whispering ever so silently amongst themselves in the field about a dilemma they were in which they did not know what to do about. And there was a 3rd man with them, Acevedo, but they wouldn’t let him near enough to hear them whispering. I watched them out the window for a few minutes. I knew you were going to surprise them so I was silent while I was in the window, so as not to catch their attention…. And I still had all the hungry children, so I went back to my job and left you to do yours.

You were mighty looking, yes sir. And you looked FIERCE and your wings were spread and your armor on, and you were going to destroy!!! And I knew it as you flew away. But first you had to exit the kitchen in a way they wouldn’t see you, so you went out to my right, and I knew you would go down and out of the house, come around it and get them from the left side of where I was. The window was on the left in the kitchen…and they were below. You left out the right side to go around.

Sandy
 
 
My take (for now) is the dream also forecasted my going out one window (last year’s county commission and sheriff races, county commission for me, sheriff for Sandy), and coming back in through the left (female side) window, with Sandy’s help (this year’s mayor race). I’ve sometimes called the angels who stay hard on my case, Navy SEAL angels, and the unbelievable rigorous training they put me through, Navy SEAL training. I associate them with the color black, because they work me over hardest in the nighttime, when I’m asleep. Perhaps as good a way as any to describe their method is what sort of fell into my lap the other day at Sippin’ Internet Café. Something about the Sufi poet Rumi, written by Coleman Barks, in “The Soul of Rumi.” Coleman’s own spiritual perspective and poetry were featured in the next to last issue of Key West’s own home grown “SECRET OF SALT: An Indigenous Journal,” a copy of which is in Sippin’s permanent library:
 
“Rumi loves to see the personal self in ruins; the absence of air that allows pickax work to be done. The treasure of deep being is buried under the rubble of personality.”
 
Sufis are the mystical branch of Islam, nothing like the mainstream branches; just as Christian saints like Anthony of the Desert, John of the Cross, Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa were nothing like mainstream Christendom. They all knew pickax work very well. Very well, indeed. Meaning, I suppose, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
 
Sloan for mayor, Key West

This most interesting response — most interesting — to yesterday’s Naturists Strike Back (Key West) post:
Hey Sloan,
 
Just want to let you know that I am surprised that you got that response to your post about the naturist beach. I read your email yesterday as very supportive. I am guessing they are just new to your writing style!
 
As I have mentioned to you, “Where’s the clothing optional beach” is one of the most frequently asked questions that we receive here in our visitor center, on the phone and in emails… I applaud your efforts in support of establishing a naturist beach and again, I took your email yesterday as supporting such and supporting the naturists at the Higgs meeting.
 
Hope to see you at the luncheon next week.
 
John
 
John C. Giuliano
Executive Director
The Key West Business Guild
 
Supporting and Promoting Key West GLBT & Allied Businesses and Travel & Tourism Since 1978
 
GLBT & Allied Visitor Center & Business Guild Office
513 Truman Avenue
Key West, FL 33040
800-535-7797 – 305-294-4603 – 305-294-3273 fax
www.GayKeyWestFL.com
 
When I showed the above this morning to a street vendor buddy, he said he really liked Naturists Strike Back, and he often had heard the same thing when he drove a cab in Key West: “Where’s the nude beach?” He said all city cab drivers heard it. I told someone yesterday that Key West and no nude beach is an oxymoron; that people who come here because this is Key West must wonder what is wrong that we don’t have an in-the-buff beach? Or two, or three. The beach in front of the fort at Higgs Beach; Rest Beach, and Truman Beach, on the Outer Mole.
 
My bitch with the gay community is they understand and know how to use market research, and they come up with the most creative ways to express Key West and themselves, and they let us straights join in. It’s darn humiliating not to be able to match them. Darn humiliating. It’s time we straights put in equal time and creative effort, and get results. It’s time. Otherwise, we just might up all having to use Viagra all of the time. We just might. Looks from John’s market research, straight from the Visitor Center, that the place to start is to give him and his troops a place to tell the folks who want to know where a clothes-optional beach is, where it is! And, unlike the Vandenberg, it won’t cost us a freaking dime.
 
Along slightly more radical lines yesterday came this reply to Naturists Strike Back from a fellow redneck mystic, who used to live in Key West and still has a timeshare here, which he comes down to use and pretend he’s still among the living:

that was fun discourse, all good stuff, guy seemed a little serious and not understanding he’s literally “preaching” to the choir!” I’d like to see all Key West clothes optional, all the time……….a spot where people pull off before crossing the final bridge, disrobe, ride their scooters wild and free…….now that would really bring in the tourists…….hope you’re well, have been reading but not writing, back to mountains in a month, tc,d . . . 
 
Sloan for mayor, Key West

Below is the text of an email sharply critical of my recent Nature Beach (Key West) post. Copies also were sent to the offices of Monroe County Commissioner Heather Carruthers Key West City Commissioner Teri Johnston. Heather and Teri are the government officials riding herd on the “resuscitation” of Higgs Beach, which is owned by the county but lies within and is used by the city and its visitors. My replies to the critic are in [  ].___________________________________________

Sloan Bashinsky:

I am in response to your email.

The purpose of this response is inform you that your email could be interpreted as offensive to Naturists.

[No offense intended. I, and quite a few people down here in Key west, tend to be a bit informal, jovial, irreverent and otherwise loose. I was darn glad to see you folks show up at the Higgs Beach gathering. I’ve been looking hard for allies in getting a clothes-optional beach in Key West, and even out on Wisteria Island, which I would love to see turned into a nature park by the current owners, whom, I understand, have expressed some interest in doing that and running it themselves.]

First, Naturists do not like to “run around in the buff.” Your sentence can be interpreted as implying that Naturists are irresponsible in their desire to be nude. This is not true and was never stated by any Naturist present. It is a general statement. The kind that are used to belittle a minority group. Also, an attempt to develop a negative image of a responsible group. Your comment is not appreciated.

[I went through two issues of the Sun-Dial, the Naturist magazine, which I was given at the end of the Higgs Beach gathering. From the photos, it indeed looked to me like you folks like to run, stand, sit around and pose for photos in the BUFF. Not everywhere, but on beaches and in other places where it is permitted.

Your statement. “The people that like to make a lot of noise about Free Beaches.” What was the purpose of this statement?

[The purpose was to indicate you are enthusiastic, vocal about in-the-buff activity. From reading some of the two The Sun-Dial issues, it sure looked (sounded) to me like you folks are very vocal about in-the-buff activity. Some of your representatives at the Higgs Beach gathering were quite vocal with me about it. We cut up and joked plenty. None of the serious tone like your email.]

Naturists are taxpaying citizens who were exercising our US Constitutional Rights, as guaranteed under the 1st Amendment to the same Constitution to speak up for issues that concern us. Many Naturists are Military Veterans and have family members in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[My condolences to your members in Iraq and Afghanistan, where I never felt American troops should have been sent. I never viewed in-the-buff activity as a First Amendment issue, although, as a former practicing lawyer, I probably should have taken that perspective. For me, in-the-buff is just the natural state, which time and viewpoints and, I suppose I should just say it, religions have driven into near illegal state in public settings.]

Further, Since when is public speech, noise.

[Alas, a lot of public speech is noise. I make a lot of it myself. I heard a lot of it at the gathering. Someone not a Naturist came up to me afterward, who was attending a Higgs Beach gathering for the first time, and said a lot of what he’d seen and heard to be rich people with nothing else to do, trying to find something to do. I said I agreed. I did not feel that way about your representatives, though. I was, as I said, thrilled to see them. Starting with my run for Mayor of Key West in 2007, I have been what appears to be the sole public proponent for the very thing you want to see in Key West, and certainly the only candidate for office advocating it.]

The Right to speak up and petition government is guaranteed and our issue, seeking a designated Naturist beach is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment and is no different than the Garden Club having a designated area and dogs having a designated Dog Park.

[I’m beginning to wear out with the legal argument, but I can’t resist noting that dogs run around and do all sorts of things in the buff that people aren’t allowed to do. What about just because this is wacky, weird Key West, and in-the-buff beach activity fits right in here?]

We never asked for the whole of Higgs Beach being taken over by Naturists to be used as a Naturist beach.

[No, you didn’t ask for that, but I sure have recommended it several times after our current mayor said he wanted to turn Higgs into a world-class beach, which it flat would be if it was clothes-optional, which would seriously help our droopy (pun optional) economy.]

We only asked to have an area, if available, to be considered for a designated beach. We were seeking an area that would avoid user conflict and respect the sensibilities of others. We were asking for consideration. Not demanding anything.

[I heard no demands for a designated clothes-optional beach, other than my own. We don’t have secluded out-of-the-way beaches here. They are all easy to get to, close to roads. There will be objections, and some people here will never be comfortable with a local clothes-optional beach. They might even view Naturists as Satanists. They probably already view me as one. No telling what they think about Fantasy Fest, or will think about Thong Week, guy and doll winners declared on April Fool’s Day, if I have my way with it.]

The fact that a designated Naturist beach, in an appropriate area, will be a destination beach for citizens and tourists and would be a recreational option for those that seek this type of facility is well documented.

[I don’t doubt it. I’ve used clothes-optional beaches on Maui. The most popular beach at Miami Beach is clothes-optional. Springer Beach in Palm County was very popular, according to what your representatives told me at the Higgs Beach gathering.]

With Key West relying on tourism to support its Hospitality Industry and the fact that the Hospitality Industry being a major employer and creator of jobs, and, also being a major source of sales and resort tax income, it becomes more important to examine all options to attract tourists. A designated Naturist beach is just one of those options.

[Yep, that’s true. And down here, there apparently is a crowd of locals who want a clothes-optional beach just for their own use. If it helps the economy by drawing in visitors, all the better.]

I might proffer that Key West is losing tourists to other tropical tourist destinations because they all offer a designated naturist beach area and Key West doesn’t.

[I’ve been proffering the same thing for a good while. I’ve also proffered that having a clothes-optional beach will appeal to foreign travelers as well as American visitors to Key West.]

Naturists are responsible family oriented citizens who only seek equality in the distribution of government funds for recreational facilities.

[I imagine Naturists are like most people: some good ones, some not so good ones, and some in-between. I’ve seen some pretty sensuous dancing and videos at the Garden of Eden above Duval Street, where I was told by some of your representatives at Higgs Beach, amidst some chuckling, they hold their Naturist business meetings.]

Richard Mason
President
South Florida Free Beaches/
Florida Naturist Association
PO BOX 530306
Miami Shores, FL 33153
naturasol@aol.com

[May I make a suggestion, Richard? Why don’t you and some of your Naturist friends go before the Key West City Commission at a regularly scheduled meeting and introduce yourselves to our commissioners and mayor, and to the citizens of Key West (the meetings are televised on Channel 77). In that way, you can begin your own effort to get a designated clothes-optional beach in Key West. However, I’d leave off trying to get it called a Naturist beach. That could be taken as asking our local government to respect a religion, which Naturists seem to me to be. The First Amendment doesn’t allow government to respect religion, or disrespect it. Just ask for a clothes-optional beach; we around here all know what that is. And loosen up some. This is Key West, not the seat of the Southern Baptist Convention.]

мебели софияSome recent email encouragements, followed by something I learned yesterday about Truman Waterfront that really, really disturbed me . . .
 
From Steve Braddock, following my Homeless (Key West) post about last Saturday’s Higgs Beach gathering: 
 
Sloan,
 
You did very well yesterday.  Your presence and voice is essential.  Where did you find the Jesus picture?  I would really like to have a copy. 
 
Peace,
 
-Steve
 

www.FKOC.org

I met some Naturists at the end of the recent Higgs Beach gathering at the pavilion in front of Salute Ristorante . . . You know Naturists, the folks who like to run around in the BUFF . . . The people who make a lot of noise about Free Beaches . . .

When we, me and the Naturists, again joked about Mayor McPherson talking about commandeering Higgs Beach for some private enterprise to fence off and turn into a “world class beach,” and charge people money to get into it (County Commissioner Heather Carruthers had already said it ain’t gonna happen), I said I’d written plenty of times that we can turn Higgs Beach into a world-class beach, like in only about a week, by making it clothes-optional . . . To my utter unsurprise, the Naturists completely agreed . . . Then they told of Singer Island’s world-class clothes-optional beach in Palm Beach County, owned by philanthropist John T. MacArthur — some of you might have heard of him — which brought in all sorts of people and — eureka!!! — gobs of money for Palm Beach County private and public coffers . . . until . . . until Mr. MacArthur died and somebody else got in charge, and McArthur Beach State Park now bans clothes-optional and it isn’t a world-class beach anymore . . . When again I told the Naturists it would take about a week after making the nature conversion for Higgs Beach to become a world-class beach, they said, “Hear, Hear!” But it sounded like HERE, HERE! Not unsurprising, they hold their business meetings at the Garden of Eden outdoor lounge and disco on the rooftop above the Bull saloon on Duval Street. Not unsurprising, because the Garden of Eden is clothes-optional. For more info about these nature buffers, contact taffrail@gmail.com.

Yeah, yeah, any darn fool knows turning Higgs Beach into a world-class beach has about as much chance of happening as I have of being named King Thong on April Fool’s Day, during the first annual Key West International Thong Week, a little over fifty-three weeks from now. Fortunately, we have a real sharp cookie on the Higgs Beach Resuscitation Committee: City Commissioner Teri Johnston. With seeming happy encouragement from Heather, maybe happy because it takes Heather off the hot seat, so to speak, Teri told me after we all three had met and conversed with the Naturists, not at the same time, that she feels Rest Beach, just on the other side of White Street Pier from Higgs Beach, which is a CITY BEACH, will make a good naturist beach. I said I thought she was RIGHT! Seldom used, long, invisible to the nearby road traffic, nice parking lot across that road at Indigenous Park, Rest Beach is an outstanding place for Naturists to congregate, frolic and worship whatever Naturists worship when they congregate. Why, I can even envision au naturale church services, baptisms and weddings, kite-boarding and, well . . . Instanto, we have a world-class beach IN KEY WEST. And we didn’t spend a penny fixing it up, or advertising, except for a sign saying “Nekked people zone.” It will advertise itself.

Meanwhilest, I suppose I should say we also need a beach for people who don’t like to show any skin at all. May I suggest Bahraim?

Sloan for mayor, Key West

Dreams last night pointed me toward writing about homeless people today. Not surprising, because I was at the Higgs Beach public gathering yesterday and saw a few homeless people there. Not surprising, because I was supposed to play in the Lodging Association’s charity golf tournament at dawn this morning, and on the way to the golf course I saw plenty of homeless people on the road after leaving the KOTS shelter on Stock Island.
 
Then I got to the golf course, paid my entry fee, declined to pay $8 for a small bucket of balls to hit on the practice range, watched others do that, wondered what I was even doing there, and, well, nobody showed up to play with me and I got my entry fee refunded and left. Driving away, I said to myself I wouldn’t sign up for another of those tournaments again, unless a threesome invited me to play ahead of time. I like playing occasionally, but maybe I’m just not cut out to do it that way any more. I wondered how those people would have handled being homeless? Especially the young fellow playing in flip-flops. I wondered what that was like for his playing partners? No way you can play golf in flip flops, unless you are a professional trick golfer.
 
Driving home, I passed a lot more homeless people leaving KOTS and felt something curl up inside of me. I doubt I ever will get over having been homeless. Not having $8 in an entire week. Riding my bicycle up and down Duval Street around dawn, looking for change so I could buy an orange that day, so I wouldn’t get scurvy. I wanted to give them a ride into town, but there were too many of them to fit into my car.
 
After the main gathering broke out into smaller groups yesterday at Higgs Beach, I went with the Security Group, to which I had been assigned. I offered to speak first, as I was one of the Higgs Beach Committee members who had been assigned as leaders of that group.
 
I started off saying I was the only lawyer I knew who had lived at Higgs Beach, slept there, hung out there. I was Higgs Beach’s resident legal and homeless expert. Then I said some things about homeless people. The chronic homeless, who have chosen homelessness as a way of life because they have up on mainstream living, it did not work for them. I said there is nothing that can be done to change these people; only God can change them. I said what we can do for them is provide food at soup kitchens and clothing, and a place to bathe. I said I was harder on them than anyone who works with them.
 
Then I said there is another kind of homeless person. New homeless people, who don’t want to be homeless but their circumstances have made them so. I described a man and woman I had seen holding large cardboard box signs beside North Roosevelt Blvd at Bayview Park a week ago. The signs said they were a married couple and were willing to work that day. I said they had to be terrified. I described a former fishing boat captain, a woman I’d seen hanging out at Higgs Beach because she was homeless. She was in shock. I said new homeless people will come to Higgs Beach.
 
I knew I was not exactly talking about Security, and I knew I was, because what was on the mind of everyone who was  worried about security at Higgs Beach is the homeless people who hang out there. But for them, we would not have even had a Security breakout group. But for them, we might not even had a Higgs Beach Committee. And that’s why I went there when I talked; that, and I had been told in dreams the night before to go there.
 
I lost the mike after a woman spoke a long time about a lot of things, a very angry woman. She wanted to know when she would be able to come out to Higgs Beach with her children and be safe. I told her people come out there all the time with their children, and if she didn’t want to be around homeless people, to use the part of the beach on the Casa Marina side of Salute, where I never saw homeless people hanging out. She didn’t like that at all, and that’s when the mike was taken from me.
 
A Captain from the Key West police force didn’t like it before then, when I told the group that, if they call into the police about someone acting out at Higgs Beach, then they had better be prepared to sign the papers the police ask them to sign. And they had better be prepared to go to court and testify. Otherwise, they were wasting their time calling it in. I personally was told this by several Key West police officers at Higgs Beach about two months ago, after I called in about a fellow named Brendon (or Brandon, or Brennen), who is a predator and very dangerous. These officers told me that they would not even arrest him unless they saw him do something wrong. I said they did not understand the law. If I saw it and wanted to file a complaint, they they could act on it. As far as I have been able to determine, from what the Higgs Beach Committee sends out by email, and from talking with homeless people at Higgs Beach, the sheriff’s office and local police have yet to identify Brendon. A homeless person told me yesterday that Brendon is going to kill someone. I do not believe this person was exaggerating.
 
As it turned out, there were people in the audience who were very upset with the approach some of the people were taking in their comments. An Asian woman, who introduced herself as a surgeon, said people need to practice compassion and understanding with homeless people. They need to teach their children to do it, too. Introduce them to homeless people, offer to share some of their food with them. I kept looking for her wings.
 
Later, after the breakout groups had reconvened with the Security Group, which was the largest group by far, Frisbee Dave, now out of jail, wandered into our midst. He’s gone completely around the bend. Talked to himself and whatever, as he gestured and wandered around in the large group, dressed only in athletic shorts, running shoes and a walkman. I said and did nothing, wondering what would happen. Nothing happened. He was left alone, and he didn’t make a move on anyone. He was just there, with us, but not with us. Finally, a man who apparently knew Dave went to him and they talked, hugged, and left to play Frisbee.
 
I later told the Asian doctor later, and a man who had a similar view toward homeless people, that God put Frisbee Dave in our midst, to follow up on what had started the Higgs Beach Committee in the first place — homeless people. We then saw that Dave had struck up a spontaneous friendship with a little boy there with his mother, not part of our gathering. As the mother and little boy walked away, the little boy kept looking back at Dave, waving at him, as Dave kept waving at the little boy. I said I had never seen a homeless person go after a child. Never.
 
As I looked towared the ocean, I saw families and children having a good time not fifty feet from where we were standing. There was a large birthday or some kind of party for small children in the playground across the street. The kids were running and jumping all over the playground, laughing, shrieking and playing — I could hear them almost as well as I could hear the people speaking in the group.

When I googled and found the photo of Jesus, homeless, above, I was reminded of standing in a soup kitchen line one Sunday afternoon where the dog park now is in the part of Higgs Beach across Atlantic Blvd. The people feeding us that day told us we would not be homeless if we accepted Jesus in our hearts. Frisbee Dave was in that line. A Jew, he might have been the only person in the line who had not already done what we were told we should do. I said plenty loud for everyone to hear, “Jesus was homeless.”
 
Sloan Bashinsky, Key West