csua.org/u/fxu -> www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_3848991
Andrew Martinez, best known as Berkeleys Naked Guy for his refusal to wear clothes while a student at UC Berkeley, has died in a San Jose jail, officials said. Officials said they found Martinez, 33, of Cupertino unconscious in his cell at the Santa Clara County main jail around 11:19 pm Thursday with a clear plastic bag tied around his head. Martinez, who was alone in his cell, had been in custody since Jan. Department of Corrections spokesman Mark Cursi said Martinez had seen mental health professionals in the last couple of weeks but declined to comment on the reason. Martinez made national headlines in 1992, when the then 19-year-old UC Berkeley undergraduate began strolling around campus in the buff for philosophical reasons. When I dress in expensive, uncomfortable, stylish, appropriate attire, I hide the fact that I think clothes are useless except as a tool for class and gender differentiation, Martinez wrote in a 1992 guest column in The Oakland Tribune, a sister paper of The Argus. 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.
Martinez -- who typically attended classes clad only in sandals and a backpack -- became a cause celebre at UC Berkeley for a while, sparking a number of nude-ins on campus and performances by the Bay Area nudist group the X-Plicit Players. Martinez was expelled from the university in 1993 after it created new anti-nudity rules. The city of Berkeley also adopted an anti-nudity ordinance after Martinez appeared au naturel at a City Council meeting. Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington remembers Martinez well. Worthington, who represents the Telegraph Avenue and south campus area, used to lived very close to UC Berkeley. I would see him quite often at the student events, and, of course, he came to City Council meetings. I always thought he was mildly amusing rather than patently offensive, as a lot of people seemed to think, he added. How sad that someone so smart -- he seemed to be a very intelligent guy -- would have such a sad ending.
|
http://csua.com/feed/