Andrew Martinez
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Andrew Martinez (November 15, 1972 – May 18, 2006) achieved fame at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States, as The Naked Guy.
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[edit] Early fame
Martinez, a 6'2" former high school football player at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, CA, began appearing naked in public September 1992, his sophomore year in college, having led a campus "nude-in" to protest social repression. Campus police first arrested him that fall for indecent exposure while jogging naked near southside dormitories late on a Saturday night. The county prosecutor refused to prosecute, concluding that nudity without lewd behavior was not illegal. The university then banned nudity on campus. Martinez began strolling around campus naked, citing philosophical reasons. He explained that when he dressed in expensive, uncomfortable, stylish, "appropriate" attire, he hid the fact that his personal belief was that clothes were useless in his environment except as a tool for class and gender differentiation.
That year, he wrote in a guest column in The Oakland Tribune: "When I walk around nude, I am acting how I think it is reasonable to act, not how middle-class values tell me I should act. I am refusing to hide my dissent in normalcy even though it is very easy to do so." Martinez, who typically attended classes wearing only sandals and a backpack, became a cause célèbre at the university for a while, sparking a number of nude-ins on campus and performances by the Bay Area nudist group the X-Plicit Players. Soon he became a media celebrity as well, appeared on national talk shows, was profiled in a photo essay in Playgirl, was adored by feminist author Naomi Wolf, and was parodied in the 1994 college comedy film PCU.
UC Berkeley eventually asked him to leave, after issuing its "Policy Statement Concerning Public Nudity and Sexually Offensive Conduct" on December 7, 1992.[1] Martinez continued living in Berkeley, and was arrested for public nudity by the city. He fought these charges and won. For many months, it was legal to walk around nude in Berkeley, until the city later adopted an anti-nudity ordinance after Martinez attended a City Council meeting naked.[2]
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[edit] Later life
After being asked to leave Berkeley, Martinez traveled to Europe, studied judo, and began to write a book about his experiences. Soon signs of mental illness stopped his progress. One correspondent on the "alt.fan.naked-guy" internet discussion newsgroup emailed another in mid-September 1994:
"I live in the same cooperative as Andrew Martinez in Berkeley. Since returning from Europe, he has camped out in our backyard (he used to live here) and eaten our food under the pretense of collectivism without paying us a penny. During our coucil today, he narrowly avoided being kicked out of the cooperative because he ignored an order from the current residents to leave. Politically, I'm not sure that he's done much; I have the distinct feeling that the innumerable appearances on Sally Jesse Raphael have somewhat sullied whatever revolutionary spirit was inside of him.
Doctors were never able to give Martinez an exact diagnosis, and he struggled for years with medication prescribed for schizophrenia. "It was an endless cycle of trying to get answers but never getting any," said his mother. "It was endless, endless, endless."
He spent the decade following his national fame moving among halfway houses, psychiatric institutions, occasional homelessness, and jail, but never getting comprehensive treatment, his family said.[3] On January 10, 2006, he was arrested after a fight at a halfway house and charged with two counts of battery and one count of assault with a deadly weapon. He was placed in maximum-security custody in Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose.[4]
The last time Andrew's mother saw her son was three weeks before his death when she visited him in jail. "He was sad. He was tired. He said he had had enough", she said. "I alerted everyone, but nothing happened". On the evening of his death a guard checked on him at 11 p.m. and he was fine, but a few minutes later other inmates reported hearing sounds coming from his cell. An officer returned at 11:19 and found Martinez unconscious. The 33-year-old Martinez was found with a plastic bag cinched around his head. He was taken to Valley Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead of apparent suicide on May 18, 2006.
Friends and family of the 33-year-old remembered Andrew as a man who struggled for years with mental illness. "He was a person with tremendous gifts and charisma who could have been a great asset to our society, but instead I feel like society—me included—failed him", said Martinez's best friend, Bryan Schwartz, a civil rights lawyer in Washington, D.C. "It's such a waste".
[edit] Quotes
"I don't want to facilitate the power structure with my conformity."
"HEY MAN, IT'S JUST A DICK! -- Militant Nudist Revolution" (text of bumper stickers Andrew Martinez sold to raise money)
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources and notes
- ^ Berkeley.edu News
- ^ San Francisco Chronicle article BAY AREA FOCUS -- NAKED REBELLION - It's all about free speech, Berkeley nudists insist published March 30, 1998
- ^ San Francisco Chronicle article Champion of nudity found dead in jail cell - 'Naked Guy' won fame in Berkeley, challenged values published May 21, 2006
- ^ Yahoo News article Former 'Naked Guy' at UC-Berkeley Dies published May 20, 2006
[edit] Further reading
- Nude and Natural magazine issues 12.2, 12.3, 13.1
- Interview With Andrew Martinez, the Naked Guy
- The story behind the above interview
- Commentary on the death of Andrew Martinez
