(Excerpt from the Coconut Telegraph Artist of the Month Interview)

Most people try to break out of prison but this crazy not so demure Southerner actually broke into one!

Sammie Mays earned rank as a gonzo reporter when commissioned by the notorious editors at the National Enquirer to snag a picture of baseball's fallen bad-boy, Pete Rose, while incarcerated in the infamous Marion, Illinois SuperMax Penitentiary. The lure of $100,000 proved too much for her to resist.

The plan only concocted after some low-life broke into Sammie's Seaport Saloon in Pascagoula Mississippi and stole her blind.“Not just liquor, money, and beer: they stole the pool table, barstools, cash register and even the air conditioning unit!" She told the Coconut Telegraph. "Ya know I’ve always heard that a bad artist borrows and a good artist steals; I wonder what they named their new bar?”

Sammie's Saloon was the only bar in the county deemed resort status which meant she was licensed to stay open after all other bars shut down at 2am.

A twenty-four hour hell raising honky tonk, it was the location where Jimmy Buffett played to his first audience (refer to his song Pascagoula Run).

"Jimmy's one-legged Uncle Billy Buffett - a regular at the bar - struck a deal for his underage nephew to sweep and mop spilled swill from the floor in exchange for stage time. Clever Uncle Bill drank for free."

The burglary left Sammie flat busted and desperate for a quick fix. She weighed her options and briefly considered posing nude for Hustler but instead she took the high road and posed as a musician, hiding two identical 35 millimeter cameras inside a busted speaker cabinet and sweet talked the warden and herself right into, at the time, the Nation's toughest penitentiary. It was literally through hook and crook that she managed to score the coveted $100,000 picture of Pete Rose in the Pokey!

Striking the media match, the next day the National Enquirer's marketing gurus leaked word of the beer slinging reporters' espionage operation to the AP and before being relieved of his duties the warden issued this final statement to the press, "Where she's going she's not going to be able to spend that money."

Tipped off by reading the daily news, Sammie began to fear for her own freedom and went underground. Long story short when the smoke cleared her Pete in the pokey photo had been named by Sports Illustrated as Best of Year. When she finally thought it was safe to come out of hiding her tabloid peers began referring to their newest celebrity reporter as the Gonz.

When I read the story I Shot Pete Rose in the tabloids and then saw "Tabloid" the television pilot, I began hearing rumors of a screenplay being written by the "Of Mice and Men" screenwriters.  

The Gonz homeport is Key West, Florida where she hails as the honorary Mayor Gonzo Mays "overtly giving out as many political favors as humanly possible and accepting all bribes no matter how insignificant." Now that's an honest mayor! 

Sammie tired of the yellow journalism gig and of all "the bull$#it" and crazy Hollywood celebrities who believed their own press, however you can still read the adventures of Mayor Gonzo most every month in The Parrot Entertainment Magazine or online www.swflparrot.com. You might also catch glimpses of her on Comcast tourist television 5 or bellied up to an island bar holding court - just look for the straw hat, sunglasses and cigar - even at night!

"Living in the islands and writing sorted adventures and drunken tales of characters I encounter sure beats the hell out of working for Southern Bride Magazine." The famous writer and photojournalist tells us. According to Mayor Gonzo “nothing but nothing is as bad or as painful as that gig with the bridal magazine. To this day I hate pink chiffon!"

 
When we ask the Gonz about her 1982 arrest on corruption charges resulting in her being deported from the island of Saint Maarten (yet another entertaining adventure) she claimed she was only trying to help educate the poor islanders and that "that night the law was just pissed off that they missed intercepting a load of Jamaican lamb's bread that was being distributed across the island."

Miraculously Mayor Gonzo is a survivor of two direct hit Category 5 hurricanes (Camille and Katrina) and thus far has managed to dodge a death threat from her old editor in chief at the National Enquirer.

Sammie Mays is like no one you'll ever encounter. When she showed up for our interview in Key Largo at the Pilot House Glass Bottom Bar her presence was undeniable. She strolled in chomping on a Cuban cigar and offered me one; I politely declined and she said, "Well why not? You probably smoke everything else!”

When asked what brought her to the Florida Keys Sammie blamed it on “that smugglin’, gun runnin’, womanizin', Captain Tony Tarracino." And then she quickly added "that it was as good a place as any to lay low while the National Enquirer got over being pissed off at me.” 

When the Coconut Telegraph asked the Gonz what she had planned to do next, without hesitating she said, "Not a damn thing but sit here and have another cold one!" However, to be more accurate, we believe she had more than one but who's counting?