Gator Press

The teacher wrote on the blackboard: “I ain’t had no fun in months.” Then asked the class, “How should I correct this sentence?” Little Johnny raised his had and replied, “Get yourself a new boyfriend.”

A woman went to a pet shop and immediately spotted a large beautiful parrot. There was a sign on the cage that said he could be bought for 50 bucks. “Why so little,” she asked the pet store owner. The owner looked at her and said, “Look, I should tell you first that this bird used to live in a house of prostitution, and sometimes it says some pretty vulgar stuff.” The woman thought about this, but decided she had to have the bird anyway. She took it home and hung the bird’s cage up in her living room and waited for it to say something. The bird looked around the room, then at her, and said, “New house, new madam.” The woman was a bit shocked at the implication, but then thought “that’s not so bad.” When her two teenage daughters returned from school the bird saw them and said, “New house, new madam, new whores.” The girls and the woman were a bit offended but then began to laugh about the situation. Moments later, the woman’s husband came home from work. The bird saw him and said, “New Madam, New whores. Same old customers!”

An alien walks into a bar and sits next to a drunk guy and begins poking him in the shoulder. The drunk guy just ignores him. After a wile the guy turns to the alien and begins looking him up and down. He notices that the alien has no genitalia. He then asks “You guys don‘t have a penis? How do you guys have sex?” The alien, still poking him in the arm, just smiles!

So two crackheads have been charged with possession. The judge decides to be lenient on them and not give them any time if they spend the next 24 hours reforming drug users. They return to the courthouse the next day and the judge asks them how many people they’ve gotten off drugs. The first guy says, “Twenty-four!” “Amazing,” says the judge! How’d you do it?” “Simple,” says the crackhead. “I just show them: ‘O’ – This is your brain; ‘o’ – this is your brain on drugs.” “Impressive,” says the judge. Turning to the second crackhead, he says, “And how did you do?” “Your honor, I saved 102 people from the bonds of the evil crack.” “And how did you manage that?” “Kind of the same as the other guy, ‘except I told people: ‘o’ – this is your asshole; ‘O’ – THIS is your asshole in prison.”

There’s this drunk standing out on the street corner, and a cop passes by, and says, “What do you think you’re doing?” The drunk says, “I heard the world goes around every 24 hours, and I’m waiting on my house. Won’t be long now, there goes my neighbor.”

18 year-old Natalie Marie Vasquez lives on Crescent Moon Drive. But according to an arrest report dated September 10th in Harris County, she showed more than a crescent moon to her “victim”.
In the dry language of the official document, the DA says that “On or about Sept. 9th (defendant) did then and there expose her anus to S.A. Smith with the intent to arouse and gratify the sexual desire of the defendant… to wit: The defendant exposed her anus in view of the public.”
There is no other information given, so I am suspecting that “Smith” is a detective, and Natalie is a stripper. However, the affadavit says she did it for her own gratification…
She is charged with indecent exposure.

Financial Advisers:
When you are approached by or introduced to a Financial Adviser, you should be aware of several important facts: First of all, he (or she) is probably NOT a “real” financial adviser. Most likely he is an life insurance salesman with an investment gimmick attached to his policies. Which is bad, because investing is taking a financial risk, and insurance is the opposite – it eliminates financial risk. So, when you combine the two, it becomes a zero-sum game, and you lose. But the salesman gets to put his hands into both of your pockets at once! He wins every time.
But even if you have a “legitimate” financial adviser, one without an insurance license, you are still going to get screwed. Remember, these guys aren’t paid to grow your money. They don’t get a cut of your gains or share in your losses. They get a flat rate, a percentage of whatever they can get you to spend.
That’s why they are always saying now is a good time to buy stocks. Whenever the market goes down, they say “Get in there and pick up some bargains” and when the market is up, they say “Blue sky, don’t miss the ride!”
These fuckers also profited from Enron and other debacles, but they never had to disgorge any of the billions they milked out of the middle class through their financial advising.
If you’re crazy enough to buy stocks, you don’t need some dickhead who didn’t see the sky falling last time around, and won’t see it next time either. This is an occupation comprised mostly of greedy scoundrels, with any exceptions being very few and far between.

The guy who donated a porno collection to the Goodwill Store:
A local Goodwill received a donation of a porn collection (over 100 DVDs), with a note enclosed that said “Due to my new religious beliefs, I cannot keep these, but they are quite valuable. Hopefully you can sell them for a lot of money to help your group.”
Wow, thanks a lot. These will be a big hit in the retail shop. Such a large selection, everything from granny porn to bondage.
What were you thinking? If your religious beliefs won’t let YOU keep them, why in the figgldy fuck would you want someone ELSE to burn in HELL for all eternity?
Besides, you stupid ignorant fucknut, the Goodwill store threw them in the trash, so now no one will be able to enjoy them, even those whose religious views allow them to enjoy adult entertainment. What a waste.

Landlocked relatives:
Every time there’s the slightest chance that a hurricane might come within a thousand miles of here, I start getting calls and text messages from kinfolks who live north of I-10 as far away as Iowa..
“You better evacuate early, so you won’t get caught up in the traffic mess”
“Y’all are crazy to stay there with a storm coming. You must got a death wish.”
“UR CR8ZY. U SHD LV” (via text)
Hey, I’ve been here for fifty fucking years.
I know all about hurricanes.
I am the Dos Equis Man, the Captain Morgan, of Hurricanes. I know when to hold and when to fold. There might come a time when I say, hmmm, time to haul ass away from the Gulf for a few days. But if and when that time comes, I’ll know. I won’t need a farmer in a corn field to clue me in!

People who hate people who hate cats:
It is a God given right to hate cats. Or bugs, snakes, spiders, rats, worms, or the color green. But if you hate cats, there are mean people who hate YOU out there.
There’s no politically correct way to hate cats. You can tell about the diseases they carry, the native bird populations they decimate, the vandalism they commit, and the deaths of newborn babies attributed to them, and the goddam pawprints they put all over your car.  It does not matter. If you hate cats, you are hated by those who hate cat haters. And there‘s a lot of ‘em.

Illiterate bastards:
which clearly does not include you, since you’ve made it this far.

from our last issue of NightMoves:

Man Is Providing Cats For The Homeless

Achmed Greenspoon loves cats, and has a genuine feeling of compassion for the homeless – whether they be feline or human.  Hoping to cash in on the “dot com boom”, Greenspoon has started collecting homeless cats and giving them to homeless people.
He has set up a web page at catsforthehomeless.org to solicit contributions. Recently, Achmed and several volunteers showed up at the Galveston Salvation Army with a giant canvass bag filled with cats – which were passed out as Christmas gifts to a group of homeless people.

“Don’t say I never gave you anything” he shouted, as he tossed each of them a tomcat or tabby.

Greenspoon finds most of his cats in San Leon, where cats reportedly outnumber insects by a 10:1 ratio.  “Cats provide warmth and companionship to homeless people.  They are able to find their own food sources when necessary,”  he told Gator Press reporter Patty Jo Money, “and in case of emergency, they do provide an excellent food source.”

Greenspoon carries 15-20 cats with him wherever he goes.  “I call them my Elite Presidential Guard” he says.

Achmed Greenspoon brings homeless animals and homeless humans together.

Fidel Castro’s Last Friend In America, Robert McKeown

In September of 1961 Hurricane Carla devastated the San Leon and Bacliff communities in Galveston County. Utilities were off and many people had lost everything they owned. In the midst of the relief effort was a Bacliff man, 48 year old Robert McKeown. Arriving at Captain Henry’s on Bayshore Drive with a truck filled with blankets and food for the victims, McKeown went to work. For several days McKeown, his wife, and several friends ferried relief supplies and people using a Rambler station wagon and a borrowed truck. Few of those who met Bob McKeown in 1961 knew very much about him, except that he owned the J & M Drive Inn, a beer joint on Red Bluff Road. No one would have guessed that he was possibly the only man in America that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro counted as a friend.

Robert Ray McKeown was born in Houston in 1913. He grew up in Galena Park and Pasadena, back when Spencer Highway was paved with oyster shells. Nothing is known about his childhood, except that he graduated from high school in Houston in 1931. His police record started the same year, when he was arrested in LaPorte for assault. Charges were dropped and he stayed out of trouble until August of 1933, when he and another man were charged with the armed robbery of a payroll courier in Baytown. McKeown was given 5 years in Huntsville for his part in the robbery. While in prison, McKeown was assigned to the machine shop, where he learned to operate a lathe and other equipment. By the time he was paroled in 1937, McKeown was good enough to get hired by Warren Machine Works in Houston. He stayed out of trouble, and married Ethel Jane Etie of Seabrook on Christmas Day of 1939.
· When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred two years later, Robert McKeown immediately tried to enlist, but was turned down because of his status as an ex-con. Never one to be deterred, he went to Galveston, where he enlisted in the Army under the assumed name of a high school classmate, J.T. Brown. Within a few weeks, the Army discovered McKeown’s true identity, and gave him an undesirable discharge. Within days, he was in Tulsa, enlisting in the Navy under another alias, H.J. McAllister. This time he got away with it, and was sent to California and on to the Pacific. After the war, “McAllister” was discharged as a Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class, and offered a job with Bethlehem Steel in Beaumont. He moved his wife and two daughters to a shotgun house on Riverside Drive in Orange and went to work. One weekend in early 1947, “McAllister” and his family vanished from the house. Over $20,000 worth of machine and fabricating tools were missing from the job site. Warrants were issued for “McAllister”, but he had ceased to exist. Bob McKeon next arrived in Pasadena, where he opened McKeown Fabricating Co. in the fall of 1947.
· McKeown then began using the name “Max” McKeown. The business received a contract from Hughes Tool Company the following year, and was soon one of Houston’s busiest shops. McKeown and his wife bought a house in the Shady Lake area of Pasadena and business boomed.
· One day in 1950, a man named Van Zeivander came to see McKeown about building a machine he had created that improved the process of cleaning coffee. The process was very successful. During this time, much raw coffee was processed and packaged in Santiago, Cuba. McKeown and Zeivander went there in 1950, where they set up a plant. Within the first year, they did over $2 million. Soon the McKeowns were well known in Havana and Santiago. McKeown became an investor in casinos, and became friendly with Cuban President Carlos Prio Socarro.
· In 1952, Fulgencio Batista overthrew Prio’s government and became President of Cuba. Prio fled to Miami, but retained ownership of business interests in Cuba. There is evidence that Prio, with McKeown’s help, transferred $19 million in cash to a Miami bank controlled by the mafia.
Batista, aware that McKeown had helped Prio, started extorting money from the Texan. When the demands became too great, McKeown made plans to move his business to the Bahamas. Batista got wind of it and deported McKeown to Miami, seizing his manufacturing plant and bank accounts.
· McKeown went to lawyers, crooks, and the government, seeking to have his business returned. His entire fortune had been taken away, and he was determined to get it back, with some payback for Batista. In Miami, former Cuban President Prio took his friend in and offered to help. The pair believed that only a coup against Batista would restore their fortunes in Cuba. At the time, Batista was having trouble with a group of revolutionaries led by brothers Raoul and Fidel Castro. They found that an organized crime figure in Tampa named Nelson Italiano was already assisting Castro’s forces with small arms and ammunition. Remember, at this time Castro was not affiliated with communism, and was considered a “freedom fighter”.
· In 1956, Castro came to Houston, where he met with McKeown and Prio at the Shamrock Hotel. At the time, Castro had just come from Mexico, where he was training his forces to invade Cuba. He needed a ship. Using Prio’s money, McKeown bought a Chilean freighter at the Port of Houston, which was later used to carry Castro’s army back to Cuba.
· McKeown may have first met Jack Ruby in Miami. Ruby owned half of a Hallandale Fla. night club called the Colonial Inn. His partner was Bernard Baker (later arrested as a Watergate burglar, and also identified by Deputy Constable Frank Weitzman as one of the fake Secret Service agents in Dealey Plaza). Baker was Prio’s “straw man” – Prio was Ruby’s true partner.
· Prio’s money and McKeown’s energy were put to use on behalf of organized crime figures. A meeting was held in May ’57 with an attorney from Tampa named Henry Gonzales. Gonzales single client during his career was South Florida crime boss Santo Trafficante Jr. The group started sending weapons to Castro through Valenti & Sons, a fruit shipper located at the Port of Tampa. Cash payment for the weapons was found by McKeown in a safety deposit box at the Pan American Bank in North Tampa. The other key to the box belonged to Henry Gonzales.
When Tampa voters elected a personal friend of Batista to be Mayor (Nick Nuccio), police put the heat on support for the revolutionaries. McKeown suggested moving the operation to Houston, and this was done by December of 1957.
When Tampa authorities discovered the operation had moved, Mayor Nuccio (who had a lot of law enforcement contacts) turned over their investigation to the Feds, who had been watching Prio for several years. Acting on information provided by the Tampa cops, the FBI set up a surveillance of McKeown from a house on the Seabrook waterfront.
· On February 18, 1958 they sprang the trap. McKeown’s yacht, the 38 ft “Buddy Dee” was seized by US Customs and the Coast Guard near Port Bolivar carrying a large gun shipment to Cuba. The Feds arrested McKeown for violating the US Neutrality Act. Arrested the same day were former Cuban President Carlos Prio, McKeown’s wife, and several others.
While he waited to go to trial, McKeown and former Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Carl Jarrett opened the J & M Drive Inn, a bar/marina located on Red Bluff Road at Taylor Lake (later known as Cecil’s Red Lantern). The money to open the club was provided by Prios through Barnard Baker. Because of McKeown’s charges, the place was licensed in Jarrett’s name.
McKeown received 5 years probation for gun-running in October of 1958. His yacht was seized, and once more he was nearly broke. However, Castro had the ship, and the invasion went forward as planned.
· On New Years Day of 1959, Castro’s revolutionaries arrived in Havana to find Batista had fled, and the casinos had been locked up. Two days later, the Houston Post carried a story titled “Convicted Gunrunner Hails Castro Victory” about McKeown.

· After the story was published, Jack Ruby came to visit McKeon. He offered McKeown $25,000 to introduce him to Castro. He told McKeown that he had some surplus Army jeeps in Shreveport he would like to sell – and asked McKeon to assist in getting Santo Trafficante Jr. released from a Cuban jail where he was being held. McKeon met with Ruby at the Edgewater Club in Kemah. Some say they made a deal, some say they didn’t. Anecdotal evidence is that Ruby rented a two story house on Kipp Street in Kemah and shipped the jeeps to Castro within a few weeks.
· In April, Castro arrived at Hobby Field on his last visit to America as a non-communist. His reason for visiting the US was to see Robert McKeown of Bacliff. The Houston Chronicle photographed Castro and McKeown together, and reported Castro had offered McKeon the job of Minister of Industry. McKeon’s probation officer and the FBI told McKeown he would be arrested if he tried to leave the US. Castro told the Chronicle reporter that without McKeon’s help, there would have been no revolution.
Apparently at this meeting, Castro agreed to some kind of ransom terms for Trafficante, but the Mafia suffered a major fiasco in trying to meet them. In early May, 1959, the Mafia allegedly stole $8.5 million from a Canadian bank and also stole a large number of weapons from the Ohio National Guard. A police investigation showed that mafiosi Norman Rothman had spent $6,000 of the money to rent airplanes to smuggle the arms to Castro’s forces in Cuba. On July 3, Rothman was arrested for this series of crimes.
· Within a year, Castro learned that the CIA was trying to kill him, and allied himself with the Soviet Union. McKeown, when he heard this, reportedly exploded. He knew that the possibility of regaining his Cuban business was now practically zero. Like other Cuban exiles, he believed that only a US invasion would suffice. The election of President John F. Kennedy was a further setback. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy made it obvious that he would not be launching an invasion of Cuba.
· The CIA however, continued to train exiles at camps in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. CIA-trained insurgent Sergio Arcacha Smith traveled to Houston in March of 1963 to work with ex-President Carlos Prio, Robert McKeown, and the Free Cuba Committee. The group met at a private club in Dickinson owned by Galveston’s Maceo Brothers. A trailer park compound with a rifle range was set up in Algoa (near Alvin) where potential Cuban liberation forces were indoctrinated and trained by Smith and others, including CIA operatives. Segio Arcacha Smith has been identified by biometrics as one of the men in the “three tramps” photo from Dealey Plaza. McKeown wasn’t personally concerned with the ideology, according to his daughter, Margaret Britt. He just wanted his business returned and was willing to fight for it.
· In September of ’63, a man calling himself “Leon Oswald” visited McKeown at his home on 1st Street in Bacliff, accompanied by a Latin man named Hernandez. The man asked about obtaining bazookas & machine guns. McKeown ran the pair off, but five minutes later they returned and Oswald asked McKeown to acquire 4 Savage .300 automatic rifles with telescopic sights, for which he would pay $10k. Sam Neill of League City was there and has corroborated the story in sworn statements to the FBI. Both said the man was identical to the Oswald they saw assassinated on television by Jack Ruby six weeks later.
· The next time McKeown was reportedly sighted comes from an FBI document that says that two Dallas homosexuals, Breck Wall and Joe Peterson, on Saturday, November 23, 1963, at about 6:00 pm, left their rooms at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, picked a man named William Seymour up at the Abundant Life Temple, and drove him to the Driftwood Motel in Galveston where they turned him over to David Ferrie, Robert McKeown, and others at about 11:00 pm. Seymour was to hide out at McKeown’s house in Bacliff, until a few days later when he would return to his sister’s home in Phoenix, Arizona. Jack Ruby called McKeown in Galveston around midnight of the 23rd to check on Seymour. William Seymour is the man who conspiracy theorists refer to as the “2nd Oswald”, an FBI informant and petty crook who was a ringer for Oswald. McKeown later denied this ever happened. Records showed the room had been rented on that date in the name of H. McAllister, McKeown’s old Navy alias.
· Two weeks later, McKeown’s probation expired and he was a free man once more. However, the JFK investigation brought him back to the FBI several times to answer more questions about Ruby and Oswald. After testifying to the Warren Commission, McKeown moved to Miami, where he and his wife remained close to former Cuban President Carlos Prio. In 1977, Prio allegedly killed himself because of business misfortunes.
· After losing a lung to cancer, McKeown moved in with his daughter in a Miami suburb. In 1989, Robert McKeown died there of emphysema.
· Did Bob McKeown participate in the plot to kill Kennedy? Nobody knows for sure. If he did, he certainly wasn’t in Dallas that day. He was visited by his probation officer, Joe Fields, an hour before the assassination took place. He was no admirer of Kennedy by all accounts. McKeown felt that as long as Kennedy was in office, he would never get his coffee cleaning business or casino shares back. If he didn’t help kill Kennedy, he wasn’t all broke up about the assassination. Despite all efforts, he never did regain his lost fortune in Cuba.
Even if Robert McKeon didn’t help kill Kennedy, he did do a lot of other things that make him one of the most colorful figures in the history of the Bayside area.