THE KING OF NON-CONFORMISTS IS DEAD
Andrew Martinez circa 1992
Andrew Martinez was a pivotal character in my college experience at Berkeley.
Before he became "The Naked Guy," he spent time hanging around Cheney Hall, where I was an RA. At first, I thought he was narcissistic, as he walked everywhere shirtless, showing off his tall, tanned, Adonis-like body. But because we shared a mutual friend, I eventually had a few casual conversations with him. To my surprise, he was an incredibly nice, down-to-earth, and brilliant guy ... who just happened to buck social conventions about wearing clothes.
Andrew soon became the first person I knew who achieved instant national celebrity. As everyone knows, he eventually led a "nude-in" on campus, which I witnessed (but refused to participate in, despite requests from my residents to join them). He was expelled from Berkeley for violating campus laws prohibiting nudity and charged with city laws. Soon he was everywhere -- on Montel Williams, CNN, and in Playgirl (after receiving a paltry stipend for less than $500).
I never found his cause for public nudity rights to be compelling. At a time when immigrant rights were being eviscerated and ethnic cleansing was being ignored, his right to walk in the buff lacked any urgency.
But I supported him. I admired his balls (figuratively speaking). It certainly takes a special person to prompt Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement, to deny his First Amendment rights. No doubt, he was the king of non-conformity.
After I graduated, I never saw him or heard about him again. I assumed he was walking the earth naked (or wearing a pin-striped suit to some corporate job).
Today, I was really saddened to learn that after Andrew was expelled from Berkeley, he apparently struggled with mental health issues and spent a decade in psychiatric institutions, homeless on the streets, and eventually in jail. He was recently charged with multiple felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon, and was held in solitary confinement at the Santa Clara County Main Jail.
This is very hard for me to accept, as Andrew was a sweet-tempered man and hardly the type to assault anybody.
Even more tragically, on Thursday, he died from an apparent suicide attempt while in the hole. Jail authorities found him with a plastic bag cinched around his head.
Now I sadly wonder what might've happened had he been allowed to walk around campus au naturel and graduate.
R.I.P. Andrew Martinez, 1973-2006. Here's hoping you can roam naked wherever you may be.
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