was part of the Tallahassee legend
The Tallahassee News
People oscillating around the edges of society usually have a tale worth hearing, and as a journalist part of my job is to get the facts to the folks. Now that people are able to share movies on the web, they have even more to talk about.
The legendary King Love of Tallahassee was an outsider. This bristly visage and royal pretender carried a degree as a medical doctor. A fact hard to believe for those who recall him at his favotite perch at a downtown corner draped in red cape and crown, a gold ankh or coptic cross dangling from his neck, waving to motorists and shouting through his megaphone "Love is the Answer!" He served notice to everyone, especially the police. King Love, or Dr. Kamal Abdou Youssef, was born in Egypt in 1933 and came to the U.S. in 1969. He established himself as a pathologist at hospitals in New York and Florida, although nowhere for more than two years, and ultimately lists himself as president of a medical laboratory in West Palm Beach. In fact, he must have been good at pathology as he credits himself with discovery of a "novel species of amoeba" as well as patents in various countries. He liked to talk about his career as medical pioneer. |
 King Love makes a case. © M. Abrams |
When he died in the midst of his tatterdemalion career in 1999, I was one of the people who attended his funeral. Culley's graciously gave him a free burial, and imported some black-draped priests from the Coptic Orthodox church in Tampa. Amid the swinging, smoking censers, the king had a royal burial.
| A lot of
people came to see him off. He was not alone in the
world. Among his many claims was that of having invented a "water bomb." This amazing device could put out any fire, he suggested. The one thing he needed to do was to demonstrate it. So one day in 1996, he put on his lab coat and visited the Quincy Fire Department, where he had wangled permission to start a fire. They still remember the day he came. One firefighter who was there says that he still recalls how disappointed the king was when his first fire didn't go out. The second time, however, was a charm. The king claimed to have invented a non-toxic extinguisher. It would, no doubt, have been mild enough to wash a baby's buttocks, as he could douse his own bald head in the bucket. Whether this was truly a new invention is a question. It was a balloon filled with ice, "dry water" and whatever, placed in a laundry bag, with one quarter inch netting, placed at the end of a pole. |
|
The fire was set in a galvanized wash tub, with paper doused in kerosene and a butane lighter.
The balloon grew larger and more pregnant as the king shook it.
The invention was his idea of "the anti-thesis of the Atom Bomb." That's what he declared in a flyer he distributed around town.
His "fire bomb" that would put out any kind of fire, he said. The fires of oil derricks, lit by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, could have been doused by his method, he said. Who knows how his invention might have been used in 9-11, had it been adopted.
Dr. Youssef gave us a video that was made at the Quincy Fire Department where he demonstrated his "water bomb" and urged us to put it on the Internet. And after a shelf-life of many years, we do so as an inauguration for our redesigned newspaper.
The king was a physician with an exacto-knife, spending his Social Security at the Target copy shop. He gumptioned up outlandish posters attacking governors and presidents, proposing marriage to Princess Diana, fighting racism and seeking religious intolerance.
He sometimes invited me, as a journalism professor and editor of this small web paper, to join him for pizza at Hungry Howies, and I still imagine him there, brilliant red against the mellow yellow walls, expounding on everything from evolutionary theory to the philosophy of Lord Bertrand Russell, the British skeptic philosopher whom he admired greatly.
Imagining himself as a suitor to Princess Diana, he was overcome with grief at her death in 1997. He took umbrage at a planned speech of the controversial Rev. Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam with the poster - "Go Home Farrakhan." For some outlandish reason he took umbrage against Florida Senator Bob Graham, and surreptitiously plastered bumper stickers all over Graham's campaign headquarters.
He thought of himself as St. George come to slay the dragon, and that was the dragon of "racism" although, to be honest, he didn't quite see eye-to-eye with African Americans and sometimes got into shouting matches. His demeanor apparently got him banned from several stores and from the FAMU and FSU campuses.
Whatever demon drove him on his path of self-destructive behavior, and that is hidden in the medical and counseling records, was probably related to depression, listed on a police report. Youssef's brother, an attorney, said at the funeral that he fell off of his bicycle as a child and hurt his head - and that may have been the reason for his behavior, apparently a lifelong problem. He died months after medical treatment in Gainesville which he said was to relieve pressure inside his skull.
"I never should have let them drill," he told me.
His first arrest we could find was in Boynton Beach in 1991 by police in West Palm Beach for damage to property or felony disorderly conduct. Then, in 1993, he was charged with making an "obscene harrassing phone call." The dossier gets a little longer with trespassing, possession of a stolen shopping cart, things like that. OK, he didn't have good phone manners, and was not one to dismiss petty slights. If he didn't like you, or even if he did, he could get into some pretty obstreporous arguments and knew some cusswords.
By April, 1995 He made his way up to Tallahassee from South Florida and was quickly charged with misemeanor trespassing by the Leon County Sheriff's office. Offenses ranged from petty theft to trespassing to hit-and-run, possibly when he was driving his old Toyota, which soon bit the dust. How he could afford a car was a question. Police said he owned an 83 gold Toyota Tercel and a white Lincoln.
The phone calls to various people he did not like continued, the bad behavior would not end. Where he lived, I am not sure, but the police say it was 1700 Joe Louis Street, apartment 158, where his body was discovered. This was low-rent government housing. His death was attributed to natural causes.
Those who knew the better side of King Love were amazed at his energy and his good intentions.
Hope you enjoy this little film.