Good Morning Key West

When I ran for mayor in 2007, I suggested many times that we should turn Key West into the pirate capital, er, capitol of the world — nay, mateys, the universe! Lots of folks said they thought it was a great idea, but I only received 64 votes out of something over 6,300 cast, so maybe it wasn’t all that great an idea after all. Even so, I’m keeping the top photo above, taken by a friend in front of City Hall during that campaign. And the mug shot just below, taken during one of the televised candidate forums, believe it or not . . .

  I did all sorts of other weird stuff, all in keeping, it sure seemed to me, with Key West’s different drumbeat. If you wish, you can read all about it, and much, much more, in the Archives in the menu to the right. Go back to the beginning and start reading forward. Might take a while. Months, maybe.

The next run for mayor (2009) is highlighted in the photo above, me in my campaign T-shirt, which might prove valuable after I’m dearly departed. Could I tell some stories about that T-shirt. Could I tell some stories, all to hasten your innoculation, er, infection in the Key West Zoo, about which more will be insinuated as you keep reading. But and in case you are wondering how that campaign turned out, I got a little over 200 votes out of several thousand cast, and came in dead last with no one else in a distant second place. The next day was my 67th birthday, and I awoke deliriously happy to still be me, instead of an elected official. 

Meanwhile, the latest daily ”crowing” dredged up out of this aging rooster’s dreams by the angels who seem to take great glee in yanking him around and otherwise using him for their amusement always is found in “Today’s Cock-a-doodle-doo” page in the menu to the right. These angels are like Navy SEALS compared to the nice sweet angels talked about in landlubber churches, of which there reputed are more per capita here than in any other city in the world, along with a perhaps not entirely unrelated reputed higher per capita 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 he had never been to Key West, or Europe, which has a lot of people living in Key West. So you’ll just have to come down here during Fantasy Fest, I suppose, in late October (Fantasy Fest page in menu), to barely glimpse what you could have seen more of on this website if I was allowed to show you how Adam and Eve sometimes get all decked out when the mood really strikes them. One of my campaign platform “bullets” is for Key West to have clothes-optional and topless beaches . . . again. People who come here don’t ask if we have a nude beach . . . They ask where it is . . .

But if you just want to meet an ET or reasonable facsimile thereof, come on down anytime and head for Sippin’ Internet Cafe on Eaton Street, just off Duval Street. That’s my planetary office. 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 west end point of the Bermuda Triangle might have something to do with all of this, 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.

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 performers. We have mucho beuno 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, that people come from great distances to enjoy. We have plenty of other grubby stuff: lap dance parlors, strip joints, escort services, 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 a couple of years back 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, but its night life . . .

But then, you just might want 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 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 here because you just can’t seem to stand living any longer where you now live. The real estate market here 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, and local mortgage lenders are aiming to please . . .

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, redneck mystic, former homeless person, wannabe pirate, pig farmer, ex-lawyer, 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 presently hiding out in Key West, Florida . . .

(click on photo to “enhance”)

p.s. Pirate pop quiz:

What’s the most common palm in the Keys?

A greased palm, matey!

Contact: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

GoodMorningFloridaKeys.com (sister website)