Sunday, November 27, 2005
If Ya' Loved Hunter Thompson, You'll Like Kinky
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Will Texas get Kinky?
He's the Jewish cowboy turned thriller writer who's hoping his outrageous charm and up-beat policies will help him pull off the biggest upset in American politics since Arnie won California. Robert McCrum joins Kinky Friedman on the trail for Governor of TexasRobert McCrumSunday November 27, 2005
Observer
Kinky Friedman once wrote a song entitled 'They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Any More'. He is also the author of a series of comic mystery novels starring a detective named Kinky Friedman. During his forties (he is now 61), he was still living with his parents, a pet armadillo and a colony of hummingbirds.
A Texas Jew, Friedman claims he was 'born in a manger, died in the saddle and came back as a horny toad'. Now he is doing the most outrageous thing in his long, outrageous career: he's running as an independent for governor of Texas. In the Lone Star State, home of LBJ and the power base for three Bush presidencies, this almost passes for normal. In the Seventies, one gubernatorial contender, Stanley Adams, reportedly listed his occupation as 'alleged white-collar criminal'. Further back, in the Twenties, it was Ma Ferguson, the first woman to occupy the governor's mansion, who declared, during one of the state's perennial Hispanic language debates, that 'If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for Texans.' Ma Ferguson was a simple, God-fearing soul, but scarcely a match for Governor W Lee 'Pappy' O'Daniel, who campaigned for office on the 10 Commandments with the words, 'I don't know if I'll get elected, but boy, it sure has been good for the flour business.'
Friedman doesn't have a lot to say about flour, but he is the only candidate to have come out for gay marriage, casino gambling and compulsory prayer in schools. His campaign staff sell bumper stickers bearing the legend 'My Governor is a Jewish Cowboy'.
In Texas, old-world courtesy and Bible-based respectability rub alongside brash Dallas caricatures. This is the state where it is illegal to milk another man's cow; which once banned the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica because it contained a formula for home-brewed beer; but where the average ranch is smaller than 200 acres. For every big-hatted oilman there's a sober, independent-minded citizen worrying about education and prayer in schools.
Texas is part of Bush's America, supplying many of the young men getting killed in Iraq, and disdainfully apart from it. Friedman's campaign enjoys the informal support of Bill Clinton (a fan of his novels) and George W Bush (a fan of his music). In April 2002, during the so-called Council of War between Bush and Blair in Crawford, Texas, the conversation turned from Baghdad and Gaza to Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. According to Sir Christopher Meyer's gossipy memoirs, DC Confidential, Laura Bush cheerfully informed the dumbstruck British contingent that she was a fan of Friedman and his song 'Proud to be an Asshole from El Paso'. There is a chance - just a chance - that a year hence, during the mid-term elections, middle America will have become a good deal more familiar with Friedman's outrageous lyrics, and with his role as a national court jester.
'So why are you running?' asks talk-radio shock jock Don Imus. 'I need the closet space,' replies the candidate, standing defiantly by the Alamo. Swarthy and piratical, with crinkly, dyed-black hair, and often chomping on an unlit Montecristo cigar, Kinky claims to have just two outfits. In the week I spent on his campaign trail, I saw only one: a black cowboy hat, a black shirt, apparently cut from roofing felt, a long black 'preacher's coat', easifit blue jeans and brown boots. He stomps up to the microphone like a kid in oversize hand-me-downs.
Today, he's fundraising with the former champion wrestler and ex-governor of Minnesota, Jesse 'The Body' Ventura, on Willie Nelson's private golf course just outside Austin. While we wait for the event to get under way, Kinky instinctively repeats a Willie Nelson joke. 'This man says to his best friend, "I think my wife is dead." Best friend: "You think? Don't you know?" "Well," says the man. "The sex is the same, but there's an awful lot of dishes to wash."'
For the rest, click you-know-where...
Link
Will Texas get Kinky?
He's the Jewish cowboy turned thriller writer who's hoping his outrageous charm and up-beat policies will help him pull off the biggest upset in American politics since Arnie won California. Robert McCrum joins Kinky Friedman on the trail for Governor of TexasRobert McCrumSunday November 27, 2005
Observer
Kinky Friedman once wrote a song entitled 'They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Any More'. He is also the author of a series of comic mystery novels starring a detective named Kinky Friedman. During his forties (he is now 61), he was still living with his parents, a pet armadillo and a colony of hummingbirds.
A Texas Jew, Friedman claims he was 'born in a manger, died in the saddle and came back as a horny toad'. Now he is doing the most outrageous thing in his long, outrageous career: he's running as an independent for governor of Texas. In the Lone Star State, home of LBJ and the power base for three Bush presidencies, this almost passes for normal. In the Seventies, one gubernatorial contender, Stanley Adams, reportedly listed his occupation as 'alleged white-collar criminal'. Further back, in the Twenties, it was Ma Ferguson, the first woman to occupy the governor's mansion, who declared, during one of the state's perennial Hispanic language debates, that 'If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for Texans.' Ma Ferguson was a simple, God-fearing soul, but scarcely a match for Governor W Lee 'Pappy' O'Daniel, who campaigned for office on the 10 Commandments with the words, 'I don't know if I'll get elected, but boy, it sure has been good for the flour business.'
Friedman doesn't have a lot to say about flour, but he is the only candidate to have come out for gay marriage, casino gambling and compulsory prayer in schools. His campaign staff sell bumper stickers bearing the legend 'My Governor is a Jewish Cowboy'.
In Texas, old-world courtesy and Bible-based respectability rub alongside brash Dallas caricatures. This is the state where it is illegal to milk another man's cow; which once banned the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica because it contained a formula for home-brewed beer; but where the average ranch is smaller than 200 acres. For every big-hatted oilman there's a sober, independent-minded citizen worrying about education and prayer in schools.
Texas is part of Bush's America, supplying many of the young men getting killed in Iraq, and disdainfully apart from it. Friedman's campaign enjoys the informal support of Bill Clinton (a fan of his novels) and George W Bush (a fan of his music). In April 2002, during the so-called Council of War between Bush and Blair in Crawford, Texas, the conversation turned from Baghdad and Gaza to Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. According to Sir Christopher Meyer's gossipy memoirs, DC Confidential, Laura Bush cheerfully informed the dumbstruck British contingent that she was a fan of Friedman and his song 'Proud to be an Asshole from El Paso'. There is a chance - just a chance - that a year hence, during the mid-term elections, middle America will have become a good deal more familiar with Friedman's outrageous lyrics, and with his role as a national court jester.
'So why are you running?' asks talk-radio shock jock Don Imus. 'I need the closet space,' replies the candidate, standing defiantly by the Alamo. Swarthy and piratical, with crinkly, dyed-black hair, and often chomping on an unlit Montecristo cigar, Kinky claims to have just two outfits. In the week I spent on his campaign trail, I saw only one: a black cowboy hat, a black shirt, apparently cut from roofing felt, a long black 'preacher's coat', easifit blue jeans and brown boots. He stomps up to the microphone like a kid in oversize hand-me-downs.
Today, he's fundraising with the former champion wrestler and ex-governor of Minnesota, Jesse 'The Body' Ventura, on Willie Nelson's private golf course just outside Austin. While we wait for the event to get under way, Kinky instinctively repeats a Willie Nelson joke. 'This man says to his best friend, "I think my wife is dead." Best friend: "You think? Don't you know?" "Well," says the man. "The sex is the same, but there's an awful lot of dishes to wash."'
For the rest, click you-know-where...
Link
