photo of yesterday’s sunset take by my gracious host Todd German
en route from Key West to his home on Cudjoe Key, about Mile Marker 22.5
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When Todd got home last night, I told him of a dream I’d just had in a nap, in which he and I were sitting on opposite ends of the couch in his living room, where I had taken the nap, having a friendly, caring talk about me and my life situation.
In “real” time, Todd then said he had really enjoyed reading what I wrote in yesterday’s Dr. Freud, I presume, Social Security disability, magnificent obsessions, Key West and Kenya dirty old men sanitorium post at goodmorningkeywest.com; it’s a circular argument, a Catch-22, for me to apply for Social Security disability benefits, since I view myself as the sanest person I know, thus how could I apply for disability on the ground that I am mentally disabled? Yet, Todd said, any person who reads that post will know I am certifiable. By this world’s standard, I said. Yes, Todd said, by this world’s standard. Laughter.
However, Todd said, he did not mean when we talked the day before yesterday about my trying to be determined disabled, that I should apply for Social Security disability, so I then could apply for AIDS Help cheap or free housing, which is only for disabled people. He meant only that I get a psychiatrist down here to declare me mentally disabled, so I can apply for AIDS Help housing.
Todd said, if I were to go to work for someone, within a week it would be obvious to that person that I am disabled, cannot do that kind of work ongoing. But that would not prove I am disabled in the way AIDS Help requires. Todd said there are psychiatrists in Key West, who will have no problem saying I’m mentally disabled, after reading yesterday’s post, but I would have to participate. I said, if a psychiatrist will see me for free, then I will participate as long as it is understood to the psychiatrist, AIDS Help, etc., that I am doing it because this world says I’m insane, and therefore this world ought to provide me cheap, or free housing. But the way I will look at it is, if I get the housing, that is this world paying me for the hard work I do, which this world does not now pay me.
Todd said he understood my position, it’s all a matter of perspective. Yes, I said, its about point of view and this is hilarious, I have had to make it fun for me, or I really would be certifiable. Todd agreed.
Todd said Key West is special because there are so many different parts of it, like a tapestry still being woven, lots of people make up that tapestry, make it what it is, and and I am one of them and the city should want to keep me around because it needs to have me here. He added, for taking that position, he may be tarred and feathered. I said I might know of some places in Alabama where tar and feathers still can be purchased. Laughter.
Todd said, what puts a tough spin on it for many people, is I write and say a lot of things that make sense, and how does someone who is insane keep doing that? How can somebody who writes as much as I do, which is well written, about so many topics, be insane?
Todd said he’d seen me so right on at candidate forums, that it was amazing. And he’d seen me stumble. I said didn’t recall stumbling, but I did recall pissing off a lot of people sometimes at candidate forums.
I said, at a candidate forum last year, at Casa Marina, hosted by the chamber of commerce, we were asked what could be done about lack of parking and crowded streets in Old Town, especially? When I got the microphone, after Mayor Craig Cates and Margaret Romero had answered the question, I said nothing can be done. Key West is way overbuilt, and the parking and traffic congestion problems are the result. However, if half the people living here moved away, that would fix those two problems.
I chuckled, told Todd that was the only sane answer. The other two candidates … Todd finished my sentence, mumbo jumboed. Right, I said.
I said, back during the 2007 mayor’s race, after audiences at candidate forums started griping about street people, calling them vagrants, bums, I went out and got VAGRANT tattooed on my right shoulder, and the next time that happened at a candidate forum, I rolled up my right sleeve and showed the audience the tattoo and said I once was a vagrant, a bum, in Key West. Was I not a part of Key West’s One Human Family then? Are homeless people not part of One Human Family. Is One Human Family selective about who it includes? Oh, that really pissed them off.
I told Todd, during the election returns at the Harvey Government Center last year, US 1 Radio News Coordinator Bill Becker started poking me after he brought me up to the dais to be interviewed on local television. He said I did not win. I said that was really perceptive. He said I only got 62 votes, I said, wow, that many?
Bill asked why had even run? I said he and I had been down that road many times. Back in 2003, when I ran for mayor the first time, and he interviewed me on his morning radio show and asked me why I was running?, I said because God told me in dreams to run. And that’s why I ran three more times for mayor, as he knew, because I had said each time I was running because angels told me to run. And same for the three times I ran for the county commission, and the one time I ran for the school board.
I told Bill that I never wanted to run, I hated politics, but angels told me to run, and I had learned not to cross them, it was not pleasant, so I ran. I said I stated many times during the mayor’s race that year (2014), that anyone who wanted to be mayor of Key West, or an elected official, was insane, an ego maniac, a crook, or any combination thereof.
I told Todd that Bill thought he was going to get me, but he didn’t look in the least pleased by the time I got through answering his questions and gibes. In fact, I got 162 votes in that race, Bill was mistaken, and I told him so after I had left the dais and had checked the final returns. He did not seem pleased for me to tell him that, either.
162 was 3.21 percent of the 5,039 votes cast in that mayor’s race, my all time personal best in 4 mayor races. Didn’t even break sweat coming in dead last - whew~!
Todd said, when I ran for county commission in 2006, when I lived on Little Torch Key, I got thousands of votes. Yes, over 7,000 votes that year, about 1/3rd of the total votes cast, incumbent George Neugent was reelected. And in 2010, against Neugent, I got almost 7,000 votes, which was about 1/4th of the votes cast in that election.
I said I published on my websites that the 2010 election gave me a read on how many people in the county liked what I think and say, and then someone on bigpinekey.com’s Coconut Telegraph wrote in that those 7,000 people voted for me because they didn’t want Neugent in office, and I blew it by not replying, using the same logic, that 21,000 people voted for Neugent because they didn’t want me in office. Neugent is a Republican, I belong to no political party.
Oh, other things Todd said last night.
I have an amazing ability to recall past conversations and report them. I said I tend to recall what I experience.
I don’t go around hurting people, or killing them, and claim God told me to do it. I laughed, said, no, I don’t do that, and when I mess up, I blame me, not God, usually.
Many people in Key West and the Keys think I’m certifiable, or I’m the greatest con man ever, but he doesn’t think I’m a con man. Todd’s right, it ain’t in me to make up all the shit I say the angels do to me and have me do.
Somewhere in the Old Testament, it says, Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The angels had no trouble at all instilling in me tremendous fear of them, and of God; and that’s why I do everything I can to stay in their good graces, including going along with this caper.
I told Todd this morning, that in my sleep last night, City Commissioner Mark Rossi came to me in a dream, real friendly and loving (brotherly), wanting me to stay here in Key West. I said, two points about that dream. One, Mark’s wife is a pretty little psychiatrist. Two, Mark really tore into me at a city commission meeting last year, after I tore into the mayor and the city commissioners about their cops murdering Charles Eimers on South Beach Thanksgiving Day 2013.
If Mark wants me in Key West, then that’s something to consider. If his psychiatrist wife wants to declare me mentally disabled, so I can get into AIDS Help housing, then that’s her business. I’ve already had a few conversations with her and Mark here and about; she’s probably already certified me.
However, I told Todd this morning, after the dream about Mark, in my sleep I heard “certiorari”, which in the law is an appeal an appellate court can choose to accept, but does not have to accept. I told Todd that I took certiorari to mean I can ask for a different outcome than getting AIDS Help housing, which would only be a small band-aid, it will not fix the problem. Only a wad of money will do that, and that’s what I’m holding out for. Todd said he understood. And he understood that perhaps I will be moved elsewhere by the angels, even though he hopes I stay here. Yeah, he really might get tarred and feathered.
A weird irony is, I was just fine with the angels recently telling me to announce my candidacy for U.S. President in 2016. I was just fine because it just had to be a spoof, a lark, fun. I could do it online from here, in the land of weird. I would say all sorts of things nobody else would say, which would make sense, but, of course, most voters could care less about a candidate making sense.
Many times after candidate forums in Key West and up the Keys onto Key Largo, people from the audience told me I was the only candidate who made sense. Does that mean the people who were elected in those races were nonsense, mentally disabled, ego maniacs, liars, crooks? - you can pick any one or more.
Meanwhile, I just can’t wait to see which, if any, local psychiatrist volunteers to play the let’s get insane Sloan free or cheap housing from AIDS Help. I just can’t wait. It will be a blast, and I will tell you all about it on goodmorningkeywest.com, where people accused of being weirdos some place else can come mingle with real weirdos.
Sloan Bashinsky
sloanbashinsky@outlook.com
