My Bloody Valentine (Part 2)

Lights, shadows, and shady people.

The personal is political

Few were surprised by Ariel and Dr. Castro’s conduct last week—disgusted, most definitely, but not surprised. Most of you have become familiar with Ariel’s repertoire by now and can see how Ariel’s grandstabbing formula is essentially an admixture of cringe and cruelty.

But Kirk shocked a great many people; people who saw for the first time last week his capacity for ruthlessness. They have begun to see how expediency alone does not adequately explain Kirk’s recent conduct. There were several ways Kirk could have skinned the manager’s cat, yet he chose the most painful and unmerciful way imaginable. He could have promised Ariel and Dr. Castro his vote in exchange for a more humane approach and, as the elder statesman of the group, insisted on a less rushed and amateurish approach to succession. Instead, he brought great shame to the city and placed himself at the forefront of a succession fiasco that has KFC looking more like Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory with each passing day.

As an aside, I hear former Miami city manager Emilio Gonzalez is KFC’s latest soup-of-the-day (suit of the day) potential successor. If true, it would be their third candidate in as many weeks, although probably not the last. Emilio is a savvy man who is capable of seeing how anyone who comes to the city as KFC’s handpicked successor is setting themselves up for inevitable failure and possibly the shortest tenure ever. If good judgment is a prerequisite for the job, merely wanting the job at all under these circumstances should be considered disqualifying. Nevertheless, anyone crazy enough to come in as KFC’s choice would be wise to try and front-load the living crap out of their employment contract.

None of this is to say that Kirk does not have certain practical objectives in mind. He definitely does. In fact, I would go as far as to say that these objectives are the prime mover in this story. I will address this later in the post.

Nevertheless, Kirk seems to be pursuing his practical objectives through increasingly impractical means. This is precisely what happens when one’s emotions infiltrate one’s judgment. What Kirk did last week had grudge written all over it. It evinced tremendous resolve for someone who was supposedly wrestling with his decision up to the very last moment. Whatever fence Kirk was sitting on must not have been very high, because he did not just step off, he dove off and then tucked and rolled over to Ariel shouting “hold my beer” as he grabbed the knife from his hand and plunged it into the manager’s back himself.

In a pathetic sort of way, Kirk’s own ruthlessness undermined the best thing he had going for him: the once-common notion that he was boxed-in and operating out of pure political necessity, the subtext being: I’m so sorry to have to do this, but I’m up for reelection next year and need to keep my new and only allies happy.

Delusions of Grandeur

The notion that deeper layers of Kirk’s personality have begun to emerge is supported by other recent bizarre behavior, such as Kirk’s earnest embrace of KFC’s latest tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory portraying the three of them as a band of brave resistance fighters speaking truth to power amidst endless threats and intimidation. The harassment is so bad, allegedly, that they had to request taxpayer-funded police escorts to the last commission meeting:

Oooookay. The sight of the mayor in the beginning of that clip pinching the bridge of his nose to prevent his liquified brains from pouring out of his nostrils…that is a lot of us whenever Dr. Castro opens her mouth.

By the way, I did not realize she lived in a floating condo in the sky, since there is no such thing as a 17th floor in her current building. Then again, maybe she was referring to a rented condo on the other other side of Douglas, like the one that corresponds with the home address she was using as recently as 2021, which she routinely listed as being in Coral Gables despite it being in Miami [highlights mine]:

You know, you might not want to take anything these people say at face value—just saying. Even if they were not prone to overacting like a bunch of failed theater kids, and even if they had not declined to file any police reports despite all the super scary things that have supposedly happened to them, there is still the sheer obviousness of it all, to wit: the sudden emergence of a coordinated narrative that casts KFC as brave victims just as they are about to engage in their most overtly villainous behavior yet. This kind of stuff is textbook KFC, which, I just realized, is also textbook Jussie Smollett. From the Miami Herald:

But here is the thing, Kirk has been running a similar narrative in the background for quite some time, well before the rest of KFC picked it up. Those who follow him on social media probably know this already, but ever since the emergence of KFC, his persona has taken on a decidedly eschatological quality. Kirk seeing himself as some kind of martyr or light-worker fighting a war against the forces of evil is nothing new, and in light of the batty little speech he gave before firing the manager, I think this might be one of the few things he is sincere about. Demonizing your enemies, after all, becomes a lot easier when you convince yourself that they are actual demons.

Kirk 2.5

It is natural to want to give Kirk a new nickname in celebration of his new and more ruthless personality. In fact a reader wrote to me just recently and referred to Kirk as Kirk 2.0. This is good, but I am afraid it fails to capture the pragmatic element I referred to earlier; the element that I believe is the main driver of Kirk’s unsettling transformation.

To put it simply, there is good reason to believe Kirk wanted a regime change as much as Ariel. More specifically, there is good reason to suspect Kirk was highly motivated to move the manager in particular off the board. You see, shortly before running for commissioner, Kirk got together with a bunch of neighbors and sold (at way above market value) his and a batch of other residential properties on his block of the Crafts Section to a large developer. That block used to look like this:

But today it looks like this:

And soon it will look like this:

You can see how Kirk is diligently fighting to preserve our city’s suburban charm. What’s more, he has a remaining property right across the street, his current residence, and the worst kept secret in the Gables is that he has been trying desperately to sell it to another developer. But here is the rub, shortly before Kirk entered office, the zoning in the Crafts Section was modified to lower the maximum buildable height where Kirk’s current home is located. This height restriction has made the area less attractive to potential buyers, i.e. developers.

Here is where it gets really good. According to several highly credible individuals in and around city hall, Kirk, not long after he was elected, had a very hush-hush meeting with several high-ranking staff members (most of whom have left or been driven out of city hall) during which he practically begged them to pursue a remedial upzoning of the Crafts Section. They say he claimed that it was “important to his family’s future” and thought it was critical that any effort to upzone that area originated at the staff level, as he did not want his fingerprints on said effort for obvious political reasons. Thankfully, those high-ranking employees, including Peter Iglesias, recognized the ethical disaster Kirk was setting up and rejected the idea outright. As it turns out, no good deed goes unpunished.

By the way, thanks to my incredible readers, I have known about this alleged meeting for quite some time. But, because it was only hearsay, I thought it best to keep it to myself. I am only commenting on it now because it is likely to be the basis of a forthcoming ethics complaint, which, in and of itself, gives it a kind of money-where-your-mouth-is underpinning. I just thought you should know this given the fact that I am an anonymous writer who you are not supposed to listen to despite the fact that I keep telling you what is going to happen before it happens.

Anyway, could this be the reason Kirk was so amenable to replacing the manager and so eager to choose his successor? Could it be that the manager’s refusal to serve as Kirk’s patsy engendered within Kirk a deep and building sense of resentment? Could this be why Kirk is often the champion of initiatives that would allow for taller buildings in areas conveniently close to the Crafts Section?

Perhaps time will tell. All I know for now is that whenever the words “increased height” are mentioned in Coral Gables, Kirk is always near. In fact, you could say that when any party wants taller buildings in Coral Gables, Captain Kirk is often there to take the helm [highlights mine]:

Sue Kawalerski and Felix Pardo, if you are reading this, you should know that I follow your planning and zoning board meetings. I have witnessed both of you unreservedly savage the once-proposed MX2.5 zoning district referenced above, the one that would have made it easier in some cases for developers to bust MX2 heights without having to apply for MX3, which is a very heavy lift in the current climate. You both made strong and passionate arguments. You implied that MX2.5 was essentially a Trojan horse for more development. For what it is worth, I agree. And because you seemed so appalled by the idea and unsure of its origins, I just thought you might like to know once and for all who was actually behind it…it was Kirk 2.5.

Something tells me you will be hearing a lot more about this throughout the year.

“When the Gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.”

Just before firing the manager, Kirk read prepared remarks despite claiming to have no idea how he was going to vote until the day of the meeting. During those remarks, and in the course of admiring his own bravery and virtue, he divinely prophesied the following:

“There are some who think they can plot and lash out and harm others while hiding in the shadows. But I’m letting you know now that a light is coming. A light that shines brighter than the sun.”

Talk about laying it on thick. A light that shines brighter than the sun? Goodness gracious, man.

I cannot say for sure what the hell our righteous warrior was talking about there, but in the event the “plotting” he is referring to involves simply revealing what he has been up to the last few years, and the “harm” to others entails sharing a bunch of information that is in the public record, then this man has really lost the plot.

Kirk, you are heading into a reelection campaign. Did you really think people were going to turn a blind eye to your various schemes? Did you really think that after giving the residents the middle finger over November elections, your sneaky salary increase, and your callous termination of the manager that they would be placated by a stupid scoop of ice cream? Did you really think that after all this you were somehow going to coast into reelection next April with everyone chanting Four More Years?

No one is that delusional.

A light is indeed coming, folks. It may not shine brighter than the sun, but it will shine bright enough to reveal what really lurks in the shadows: no thugs, no monsters, no demons…just Kirk and his shady past.