The pen is mightier than the sword, thus the sword defends the penDay before yesterday brought invitation from Capt. Jarvis Osorio that I take over as editor-in-chief of Key West the (Blue) Newspaper. I wrote of that in yesterday’s sb,editor-in-chief? post, and sent this email to Jarvis:
Morning, Jarvis. I sent you the teaser for today’s post separately – you sure know how to start a lot of trouble 
.
.His reply:
Sloan,
Good afternoon. I wasn’t trying to start any trouble. I try to stay low key on my opinions. I enjoy reading your blogs, mainly because it’s the local news from an honest perspective from someone that is not influenced by status, money or power. Which is why I don’t read the news paper anymore.
My thoughts on the blue paper were just an idea to you. A person I respect, and that truly has an overall good heart, and intentions for the community.
Respectfully,
Capt. Jarvis Nelson Osorio
Received this reply to yesterday’s post from another vicitm on my email hit list:
hi sloan,
you should do it.
the administrative bullshit dennis could just show you exactly how.
it’s not general motors down there, and he knows absolutely everything you would posssibly need.
also: it’s a weekly. it has slow days and heavy ones. you do this thing every day. you could just leave the angels at home and do this thing as straight news.
your end? your readership would go up a hundred, maybe 500 times. wtf, over.
paul
To which I replied:
Hi, Paul. Thanks for your reply with enough salt to avast it properly.
Hmmm.
Do you think Dennis should have any say in this? Or, wtf, should I just muster some of my Key West bad ass pirate mates and wenches, sometimes even more bad ass, and launch a corporate raid?
My readership might indeed skyrocket, and Dennis’ readership might plunge past Davy Jones’ locker at flank speed.
No way I can keep the angels out of it, unless they keep themselves out of it, which ain’t too terribly likely to happen, although they might be able to suffer through not having any mention of them on blue paper. But they would know that I would know the juicy shit that started popping up, to the distress of some and to the glee of others, would be their handiwork. Just as it was their handiwork that Capt. Jarvis Osorio wrote to me yesterday about me being editor-in-chief of the blue paper, after the angels put the outrageous idea in his head maybe without him even knowing the sneaky bastards did it.
I sort of doubt Dennis likes much about me, and I rather imagine the thought of him and me running the blue paper together, or me taking it over to give him a rest, might be the last thing he ever would have considered. Even so, I’ve seen some really strange things happen in my life, so I’m taking this as it comes.
According to Sandy Downs, while she was running for sheriff in 2008, Dennis told her what she and I were doing to bring Bob Peryam’s philandering into the sunshine was God’s work.
Maybe three months ago, I wrote in a post the angels told me in dreams that the arresting officer, Sanchez I think was his name, set up and framed Dennis for the D.U.I., pretty much as Dennis wrote about it in the blue paper.
Dennis gets a copy of every raving I publish to the goodmorning websites. He received today’s, and I imagine he will hear of it from others. Looks to me the not entirely tender offer is on his foredeck, absent the raiding party solution. Maybe Dennis will fire, or float, something back. Maybe not.
Do you have to file anything with the SEC (not the football SEC, but perhaps that would be more appropriate filing agency for contact sport issues), or with any other acronym, to launch a corporate takeover?
Meanwhile, you did not tell me where the money will come from for me to run the blue paper. Do I need to ask my pirate mates and wenches to sally forth and pillage a few cruise ships in the city harbor of their booty?
Further meanwhile, you did not affirmatively offer yourself as a contributing writer, so I conscripted you.
Sloan
In 2010, the blue paper declined to endorse either George Nugent or me in the District 2 County Commission race. I took that as sort of an endorsement, as George was running for his fourth term and had trounced me in 2006. He trounced me even worse in 2010.
The pen is mightier than the sword, thus the sword defends the pen came to me out of the blue in the spring of 2001, when I started publishing an anonymous one-page Key West politics newsletter at the branch library, using their online computers and printer and copying machine. Going by Sloan Young, having legally changed my name the year before, I was homeless and had very little money. A typical edition was ten paper copies, which I got on my used rebuilt bicycle, which my friend “Bicycle Bob” had given to me, and distributed to Mayor Jimmy Weekly’s office, a few homeless people, and a few other people six days a week. Each day’s commentary began with: The pen is mightier than the sword, thus the sword defends the pen.
I became Sloan Young in early 2010, after my father reacted very meanly to my approaching him about an older half-brother about whom I and my siblings had known nothing. In August 2008, I had learned of the older half brother, first name Travis, in my dreams and in the dreams of my then two best men friends. I went to see my father’s older brother Leo, who confirmed I had an older half brother and said he wanted nothing to do with that! I sat with the information until December 1999, when I realized it was time to speak with my father about it. After his mean reaction, I was told by the angels to become Sloan Young. I became Sloan Young.
Dennis Cooper and Sloan Young met in early September of 2002, after I became involved in the formation of the Citizen’s (Police) Review Board, for which Dennis and the blue paper were playing a lead role in drumming up votes in an upcoming referendum, which would pass handily despite heavy opposition from the Chief of Police, Mayor Weekley, the city commissioners, and, as I recall, The Citizen. My impression then, and now, Dennis and the blue paper won the day for the referendum.
Because of our prejudice against the local police, I told Dennis at a Citizen Review Board formation meeting that he and his girlfriend and I should have nothing further to do with the Citizen Review Board. Dennis didn’t see it as I saw it, and he tore me up in the next issue of the blue paper. I sent him an email, asking for a chance to reply in the blue paper to his article, which left him wearing the white hat and me wearing the black hat. I said I would publish it in another way, if he did not give me space in the blue paper.
I heard nothing back and published my own account to my then growing political email hit list, which included Mayor Weekley, the city commissioners, the city attorney and city manager, the police chief, a number of local journalists, and quite a few Key West people. I said in the article that Dennis held the blue paper out as being a press where journalism is a contact sport, and now we would get to see if that applied to journalism about Dennis. I took him apart and the city officials loved it, according to what some of them told me.
Thus really began my political career in Key West.
When I ran for Mayor in 2003, someone I knew pretty well, who said he and Dennis were buddies, told me to go see Dennis about my campaign. My friend said Dennis would throw his support behind me. I said I didn’t think that was a very good idea, and explained why. My friend wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I went to the blue paper offices on Fleming Street and knocked on the door. Dennis opened the door, saw me, said, “You fuck! Get the hell out of here! I’m calling the police!” About like I had figured it would go, except for the calling the police part, as by then Dennis was persona non gratis with the police force, and, by then, Police Chief Buz Dillon and I were best of friends. I left the premises, but later wished I had stuck around to see if the police would come to Dennis’ rescue. I wrote about that also, and sent it to my growing political email hit list.
Shortly after meeting Dennis in September of 2002, when the drive to get the Citizens Review Board referendum on the ballot was revving up, I was moved to do a The pen is mightier than the sword, thus the sword defends the pen soul drawing, which I took to Dennis’ office and, as I recall, left with a woman who said she would give it to him. When sometime later I saw Dennis and asked if he had gotten the drawing, he said yes, but he didn’t know where it was, maybe somewhere on his desk. I said if he didn’t want it, I would come get it. He said he might not have any use for it, so I later went to his office when he was there and was able to retrieve it. I don’t now remember what the drawing looked like, but I remember how strongly I felt it was given to me to draw for him.
That was my first indication Dennis and I probably weren’t going to hit it off, but as I wrote to Paul yesterday, I’ve seen lots of strange things happen, and I’m taking this one step at a time.
Here’s the link to Key West the Newspaper: kwtnblue.com. If I somehow were to become its editor-in-chief, to “Where journalism is a contact sport” I would add “and no prisoners are taken.”
I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com, but today I’m at at a rugby scrimmage with the All Blacks in New Zealand, trying to get my lazy fat ass in shape for next year’s journalism season.
Post-script: After writing the above for hopefully the last time before dawn this morning, I looked at The Citizen online, just in case something there seemed relevant to today’s post.
An article about the new (but used) homeless outreach RV having a bit of trouble getting rolling, because it keeps breaking down. In my line of work, that would be a seriously loud signal from God that the roving RV is not pleasing in God’s sight, and if I were running the blue paper, there would be an article about that, and about the same Citizen article appointing Mike Mongo as a homeless expert, after Mike had appointed himself such. To my knowledge, Dennis Cooper has not touched much on homeless issues in the blue paper. To my knowledge, Mike Mongo knows about as much about being homeless as Dennis Cooper knows. If Mike really wants to hold himself out as a homeless advocate in Key West, he first needs to spend six months being homeless in Key West. Aside from all of that, looks to me the new homeless outreach fellow described in The Citizen, who was brought in and mostly has been going around on foot wiith the RV on the blink, isn’t doing anything for street people that has not been done for them for many years by local homeless help agencies.