Good Morning Key West

Click this – Today’s Cock-A-Doodle-Doo – for each morning’s crowing on just about any and every thing, and what I dreamed

When I ran for mayor in 2009, I campaigned hard for Key West to get itself a nude beach.

Right, Key West didn’t have a nude beach, which seemed impossible in the face of Key West’s bawdy reputation. I could have cared less about flopping around nekkid on a beach, but I was willing to bet the conch farm a nude beach would viagra Key West’s economy up so high pronto without spending a pence in advertising, that I went all out for it. For my outlandish efforts, I received about 240 votes out of 6,400 votes cast in a 4-candidate race, and came in so dead last that nobody even threatened taking the booby prize away from me. Booby became a theme in that race, if you get my drift, after a fair damsel, who became known as Aphrodite, burst topless into a call-to-candidates gathering and shouted, “Nude beaches for Key West! Sloan for Mayor!” Right, Key West still doesn’t have a nude beach, although The Garden of Eden on Duval Street lets you bare all at its roof-top digs and some motels and hotels might let you get away with it at their swimming pools out of sight and mind from the local Plymouth Rock of the Agers.
That was my third stroll for Mayor of Key West. I received 64 votes in the second sally forth in 2007, and 34 votes in the first in 2003. So by 2009, things definitely were looking up in a schizophrenic sort of way, when I realized my campaign T-shirt was going to become a collector’s item and get real valuable after I was dearly-departed. Here’s the backside of the instigator of the backside of the T-shirt – Aphrodite, which I drew from what I wished was my memory but also was only from my imagiatin. The front side was a bit more racy, but best leave it off this homepage, as the weblink provider shut me down a couple of times for posting photos common in these parts but not, apparently, elsewhere.

Could I tell some stories about that T-shirt. Could I tell some stories, all to hasten your inoculation, er, infection in the Key West Zoo, about which more will be insinuated as you keep reading. See some of the stories in the Campaign Bill board pages in the right-hand menu. The day after I won, by not getting elected and then having to kill myself, if the recount failed to unseat me, was my 67th birthday. I awoke pleased to still to be me, instead of an elected official.
The daily “crowings” at Today’s Cock-A-Doodle-Doo are dredged up out local and not always local skirmishes and out of this aging rooster’s dreams, all orchestrated by the angels who seem to take great glee in yanking me around and otherwise using me for their amusement. These angels are like Navy SEALS, maybe reincarnated bad-ass pirates, compared to the nice sweet angels talked about in landlubber churches, of which are reputed more per capita in Key West than in any other city in the world, along with a perhaps not entirely unrelated reputed higher per capita number of bars and consumption of alcohol . . .
There used to be some really pretty pictures on this here home page and in the Key West Gallery menu page, but the straight-laced landlubber web-link provider either didn’t like natural beauty like the misfit humans in these parts like it (they don’t fit in anywhere else), or the provider had never been to Key West, or Europe, which has a lot of people living in Key West. So you’ll just have gander the Fantasy Fest page in right-hand menu for bare preview of what you could have seen more of on this homepage, if I was allowed to show you how Adam and Eve sometimes get all decked out when the full moon and mood really strike them.
Meanwhile, if you just want to meet an ET, or reasonable facsimile thereof, come on down and head for Duval Street and start introducing yourself to anyone who doesn’t look like he/she just came off a cruise ship. During hurricane season, you can get my dream maker’s weather forecast, so you will know whether to skiddadle or stick around. Yep, I don’t pay no attention to human weather service hurricane forecasts or government mandatory evacuation orders. Nor do many thousand other Key West and nearby island folk. Living on the west end point of the Bermuda Triangle might have something to do with all of this weirdness, but then, maybe Key West is the cause of the Bermuda Triangle! Known to some, the earth-water energy here is similar to the energy that draws people to Sedona, the Himalayas and the Andes. We have plenty of gurus here, but most of them are on the lam from something they ran away from some place else, so none are recommended here. Instead, go to a bar and get drunk and forget everything.
Unknown, perhaps, to some, Key West is seriously rich in historical architecture, sea relic and art museums, local play productions, famous now mostly disceased novelists, poets and playwrites, and sidewalk artists, craft makers, musicians and street performers. We have mucho bueno restaurants featuring a wide variety of cuisine and prices, and beaucoup rustic and sometimes down right grubby bars and saloons, with and without rustic and sometimes down right grubby performing musicians and actors people come from great distances to enjoy. We have plenty of other grubby stuff: lap dance parlors, strip joints, escort services, orgy dens, all right on Duval Street, the southernmost riot in the continential U.S. A Lou Harris (Lou’s a part-time Key West resident) public poll taken in 2007 discovered the reason most given by visitors for coming to Key West was not its fishing, diving or sailing, not its beaches, not is historical significance or architecture, not it writers and artists and galleries, not its churches, but its night life . . .
But then, you just might want to come down here because you are so constipated and anxious where you now live that you can’t let your hair down and be who you really are. We specialize here in being who we really are, and we love visitors with the same hankering. (Check out Island of Misfit Toys page in the right-hand menu.) However, we are a tad overbuilt, so our druthers are for you to come for a visit with a lot of your money; then, after you have spent it all, go back to where you came from and tell all of your other constipated and anxious friends about the Last Tango on Earth, and bring them back here with a lot of their money, and more of yours. Do that again, and again, and again, and, by golly, maybe all of a sudden where you now live will start unlocking its bowels and other personal parts, and you won’t feel the need to come down here to get your plumbing fixed . . .
Or maybe you will just move down here because you just can’t seem to stand living any longer where you now live, which is what we call the Keys disease down here. Our real estate market has plummeted (due credit to Hurricane Wilma, who put 3-1/2 feet of seawater over much of the island), and we now have plenty of homes and condos for sale at what, for Key West and nearby Keys, are bargain basement prices, with local mortgage lenders aiming to please . . . You still might think prices are too high, but they are in Davy Jones’ Locker compared to where they were before Ms. Wilma came courting.
With caution thown to the wind, maybe you’d still like to send in a pretty picture for the Gallery, or an email to which I will respond in some way or another, which may or may not make your or my day, but respond I will . . . Who knows what else might end up happening, when I sure as heck don’t. Meanwhile, I suppose the beatings will continue until morale improves . . . Cheers!
Sloan Bashinsky, ex-lawyer, redneck mystic, former homeless person, wannabe pirate, pig farmer, stranded extraterrestrial, alleged crazy person, confirmed trouble maker, suspected shipwrecker, bare aurvivor of seven marital courses in wemins studies, unrecognized famous novelist, aboriginal artist mostly inclined toward the female form, reputed shocker poet and otherwise dubious character

2011 photo, after too much clean living – revolting, soon grew back the beard, but at least you know what I look like shorn

trick pop quiz:

What’s the most common palm in Key West?

A greased palm, matey!

Meanwhile …

After some months of goodmorningbirmingham.com (my home town) being up and running, this comment came in, which was caught by my spam filter:

“It’s a good shame you don’t contain a give money press button! I’d definitely give money for this fantastic web page! That i think in the meantime i’ll be satisfied with bookmarking together with putting an individual’s Feed that will my best Msn balance. That i appearance ahead that will recent messages and definitely will promote the web site utilizing my best Facebook or twitter team.”

To which I replied:

“Well, if you feel overwhelmed to give me money, my snail mail address is Sloan Bashinsky, 1031 Grand Street, Little Torch Key, Florida 33042. I would be pleased to accept cash (US preferred, but probably can make do with Canadian and Euros through local banker buddy), personal or corporate check, money orders (US Postal work best), Western Union wire transfer, and, if you are so inclined, I can provide bank wire transfer info. If you still are holding Confederate currency and want to get rid of it, I have some friends from one of my prior lives who’d love to have it, maybe even pay me something for it.”

Now that my mind’s on this topic, gold and silver, platinum, pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, saphires, and kindred precious might work pretty good, too.

Suddenly converted back to piracy, I was compelled to add that lusty news to the two Keys websites.

You can reach me at  keysmyhome@hotmail.com.

There is another version of the Keys madness at goodmorningfloridakeys.com.