The secret diaries of AC Weinstein … by gimleteye

The stack of unwrapped newspapers outside his condominium on Miami Beach alerted neighbors something was amiss. Last week AC Weinstein, 62, died of an apparent heart attack. AC was chief of staff to successive mayors of Miami Beach. But prior to being a city hall insider — he was a columnist and muckraker, not just here (Sunpost) but also in Key West; an astringent observer of daily political life. He proceeded from skepticism on points of human nature and assumed nothing was as it seems. When he moved to Miami Beach, nearly 20 years ago, it didn't take him long to decode the sharp elbows and monied agendas of politicians and contributors to political campaigns from the real estate development industry. On the blogs, his passing elicited praise, vitriol, and other worldly notes. The photos in the latest edition of Sunpost of AC, accompanied by a broad banner headline, “Farewell”, were fuzzy and out of focus. That is how most people knew him: a man enigma served well.

The entrepreneurial side of AC swerved toward editorial journalism, more to action than passive observing. He wasn't a fan of the mainstream media, that he believed acted mostly as maid servant to wealthy special interests. To people he didn’t like or thought were dumb, he could be short, nasty, and brutish. But that was his form of push-back against the corruption that can grow like kudzu in local politics unless it is constantly cut back. There are no classes in college to understand how this works, or how the news is scarcely reported. Public indifference to political life leaves plenty of space for people with no skin in the game and for reporting from the front line.

I knew AC from his earlier incarnation in Key West, where we both lived for a time. He hosted a local cable television show, “Eye on the Keys”. He roosted in city commission meetings, observing in print, too, far more than bigwigs wanted; either in the mainstream press or political office.

I was advocating for environmental causes in the Keys; water quality, sea grass destruction, terrible land use planning, etc. and eventually had a TV show on the same local cable channel that followed his time slot. AC didn't warm quickly to environmental issues; there just seemed to be so much more that counted. But when he saw how they were wrapped up in the business of money and electoral politics, he grew curious. That side of the world fit the cut of his jib.

It had been a long time since we last saw each other, last spring. I called to invite him to lunch. He was pleased to take my call. Mayor David Dermer had been a great help on the Urban Development Boundary issues, that pitted wild-eyed radical property speculators who commandeered county hall against municipalities struggling to match budgets to needs. AC said he had followed my career. We laughed. He asked if there was anything I needed. On an impulse, I told AC my kids are all surfers and grew up surfing on 1st Street. I told AC, only my youngest is still at home and if I could have a key to the city, he might think all this civic work is for more than the birds. He said, he'd talk to the mayor and we arranged a date for lunch.

We met at the Ice Box, a sidewalk café off Lincoln Road. It didn’t bother him much that every other passerby paused to shake his hand and say, I’ll call you. We shared stories of the characters who have mostly passed from the political scene, retired, or who went from the scene to white collar jail, and marveled how each of our paths had stumbled forward from Key West hot house to Miami, a city strange to both of us when we arrived.

AC came from a television and advertising background. He had that spirit that takes root in a specific time and politics of a place; not reaching for bright colors of novels that may fly off shelves or gather dust.

Over lunch, he confided -- a little shyly-- that he had written every day of his life, stretching back to Key West in a journal comprising “thousands of pages”. He said, he had 'written it all down'. It came out sounding like every particular, every detail of fact and his fervid imagination had been etched in long-hand; a diarist and Samuel Pepys for our time. Now I knew AC well enough to know he could bullshit with the best; it was partly his calling card. But news of his secret diaries didn't come out as trumped up fiction.

To the contrary. I asked if he had shown the journals to anyone. He mumbled about a friend, a NY publisher who was excited, but that the work of editing etc. would wait for his retirement. Then he paused to shake someone else’s hand.

At the end of lunch, after AC had paid his half and we were saying goodbye, he said; oh one more thing and pulled from his pocket a little blue box. I opened it. Inside, there was a key to the City of Miami Beach. We shook hands. I said, let’s get together soon. It was fun. It really was fun, too.

I hope AC's diaries are found and are published. It would be a shame for them to pass, only to urban legend.