Richard Friedman was born in Chicago in 1944, the son of east European immigrant educators who, in 1952, set up a summer camp in the east Texas hills, a much loved liberal haven for generations of mainly Jewish kids. He wrote his first song, 'Old Man Lucas', when he was 11. Last month, when I heard him perform it at the Texas Book Festival, pursued by a film crew from Sixty Minutes, half the audience happily sang along with him: 'Old Man Lucas, Had a lot of Mucus, Hangin' right out of his nose ...' Kinky has a place in their hearts and minds. People stop him in the street to declare their support, and to tell him they've been a lifelong fan. Author, Musician, and candidate for Governor of Texas, Kinky Friedman served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia in the 1960's.
Deep down, in a part of himself he does not visit too often, Kinky Friedman nurtures an ambition to perform his own bizarre brand of public service, in which conventional wisdom is flouted, political opportunism scorned, truths told fearlessly, and the weary and apathetic electorate is cheered up
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 Texas
Sunday November 27, 2005
The 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.'
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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 socalled 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."' The country and western star, the former wrestler and the candidate pose for the cameras. Ventura is happy to swing a club, but equally happy to speculate at length about the assassination of JFK (he has a theory about this). Weird as it seems, it is no stranger than the journey Friedman has made to arrive at this defining moment in Bush's America.
Richard Friedman was born in Chicago in 1944, the son of east European immigrant educators who, in 1952, set up a summer camp in the east Texas hills, a much loved liberal haven for generations of mainly Jewish kids. He wrote his first song, 'Old Man Lucas', when he was 11. Last month, when I heard him perform it at the Texas Book Festival, pursued by a film crew from Sixty Minutes, half the audience happily sang along with him: 'Old Man Lucas, Had a lot of Mucus, Hangin' right out of his nose ...' Kinky has a place in their hearts and minds. People stop him in the street to declare their support, and to tell him they've been a lifelong fan.
From Echo Hill, he went to the university of Texas in Austin, the state capital, home city of Willie Nelson, Janis Joplin and O Henry, and a place known for its hospitality to eccentrics. Appropriately, Friedman, the quirky kid with the Jewish afro - which he describes as 'a Lyle Lovett starter kit'- now became Kinky, or The Kinkster. He is the kind of man who can cheerfully refer to himself in the third person.
Graduating from Austin in a haze of drugs and alcohol - 'a happy childhood is the worst possible preparation for life,' he says - he joined the Peace Corps, and headed off to Borneo 'to help people who'd been farming successfully for more than 2,000 years to improve their agriculture'. Alone in the jungle, he dreamed up the idea of a band called Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. It had always been his dream, he says, to be a country music star.
The original Jewboys, a band with a social conscience and satirical instincts - 'the demented love child of Lenny Bruce and Bob Wills', Friedman says - were indeed all Texas Jews. Their outrageous brand of musical humour and spliffed-up amateurism quickly caught the eye of the music press: 'Band of Unknowns Fails to Emerge' quipped Rolling Stone. Not for long. Who could ignore songs like 'Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed'? Soon, the Jewboys were performing in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry. 'Sold American', a reflective and wistful number, made the charts. Kinky toured with Bob Dylan in the Rolling Thunder Revue, while the Jewboys played with Willie Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis and Billy Joel, causing trouble wherever they went. There were death threats in New York and Nacagdoches, police protection from enraged feminists at the University of Buffalo, and a lot of mutterings in the conservative Texan backwoods. But as the Seventies drew to a close, the job of irritating the hell out of American audiences was wearing thin. It was time for Kinky to reinvent himself again.
So in 1984, flat broke, Friedman wrote a crime mystery, Greenwich Killing Time, with a detective named Kinky Friedman and characters such as Little Jewford, Cleve and Ratso, band members moonlighting in his imaginative world, much as some now figure in his campaign. His musical friends pitched in to praise his work. 'Kinky Friedman,' said Willie Nelson, 'is the best new thriller writer since Dashiell whatshisname.'
With two further 'Kinky Friedman mysteries' (Armadillos and Old Lace and A Case of Lone Star) he built a reputation across the English-speaking world, particularly in Australia. 'Kinky, Mozart, Shakespeare,' rhapsodised Joseph Heller, in an allpurpose quote, 'with what can I compare them?' It's a good question. Ask Kinky to define himself now and he will say something like he's 'a dealer in hope'. Cheering people up is his forte, but he has struggled to find an audience big enough to equal his ambitions. Throughout the Eighties he wrangled with his creative identity, but never quite hit the big time.
When his mother died in 1985, he returned to Echo Hill to live with his father and work with the kids in his parents' summer camp. His father died in 2002, but he often quotes him: in one pitch to Texas voters, he said, 'Treat adults like children and children like adults.' That's appealing to him, too: there's a Peter Pan side to Friedman, I think, connected to an inner despair that comes into its own when he steps into the limelight. But who exactly is his audience cheering? It's not always obvious.
Deep down, in a part of himself he does not visit too often, Friedman nurtures an ambition to perform his own bizarre brand of public service, in which conventional wisdom is flouted, political opportunism scorned, truths told fearlessly, and the weary and apathetic electorate is cheered up.
Occasionally, Kinky suffers a spectacular smash. In 1986 he ran for justice of the peace in Kerrville, near Echo Hill, and lost badly. 'I couldn't decide whether to kill myself or get a haircut,' he remembers. 'There must be a place in politics for a man of my talents.' Maybe he should run for mayor of Austin? And then - eureka ! - what about governor of Texas? 'That might be therapeutic. When I meet a potential voter,' he says, 'I'm good for precisely three minutes of superficial charm.' He was certainly looking for a new distraction, and jokes now that 'by the time you've written your 17th mystery novel, if you ain't crazy there's something wrong with you. If you happen to be your own main character, it tends to be even worse.'
If he went into Texas politics, there'd be no problem about being his 'own main character', starring in his own movie. And so, on 3 February this year, the anniversary of his father's death, he stood by the Alamo and announced he was running. His campaign slogan was: 'Why The Hell Not?' Some Texans thought it might just catch on.
The same idea occurred to Bill Hillsman, a political advertising wizard who had served Jesse Ventura's campaign for governor of Minnesota in 1998. Hillsman looked at the poll numbers, did some calculations, and offered his services. He was followed by former US senator Dean Barkley, another Ventura campaign veteran who is now Kinky's campaign manager, and Reid Nelson, a seasoned political fighter whose task is to lick the campaign's many young volunteers into shape and build a viable independent network across Texas. Paul Begala, President Clinton's former political adviser, reckons this is a crack team. It will need to be. Texas is an electoral elephant trap, bigger than France and the Low Countries combined, with a long and colourful history of gerrymandering and vote-rigging. Molly Ivens, the Texas commentator, says that, 'If you can't take their money, screw their women, drink their alcohol and vote against them anyway, you don't belong in the [Texas] legislature.'
Texas representatives are drawn from 254 state counties, some as sparsely populated as Loving, West Texas (67 souls), others as dense as Harris County (2 million). From Big Bend to the Panhandle, the rampant Republicans, split between governor Rick Perry and Carole Keeton Strayhorn (slogan: 'One Tough Granma'), already have statewide organisations in place, ready to march into battle.
Even the much diminished Democrats will want to mount a Stop Kinky effort. What's more, Kinky has, in effect, to fight the campaign twice over. First, to qualify as an independent gubernatorial candidate, Texas law states he must collect 50,000 signatures from registered voters. But every signature must be notarised, and there are bizarre restrictions on those entitled to sign. For example, anyone who has already voted in the state primary election is ineligible, and all bona fide signatures have to be collected within eight weeks.
Hardly surprising, then, that in nearly 150 years there has never been an independent candidate for governor. Texans like their politics like their football: two sides slugging it out for supremacy, with no interference from outsiders.
After the eight-week petition drive, which starts in March 2006, and assuming he gets on the ballot, Friedman's campaign will take place in the autumn, with polling day 6 November. Kinky, who believes he will not only get on the ballot but go on to win, refers to 7 November 2006 as 'Texas Independence Day'.
That's still a distant prospect. Political campaigns in the US typically cost tens of millions of dollars, with fortunes squandered on the 'air war' - cut-throat television advertising. The Texas Republican war chest is vast; at the moment, Kinky's campaign is a shoestring effort, backed by a shampoo millionaire named John McCall and financed by the sale of T-shirts, books and bumper stickers. Incredibly, against all the odds, on the road, when it's going well, Kinky's campaign looks like a winner.
He's currently touring the state, like the old rocker he is, in a beat-up SUV, driven by Jeff 'Little Jewford' Shelby, his amanuensis, fixer and buddy, drumming up support.
At the Marriott Sugarland Hotel in Fort Bend, outside Houston, the chamber of commerce is solidly Republican. This is the home turf of Tom DeLay, the Republican senator under indictment for campaign finance violations. Kinky has been invited to address the local Chamber of Commerce.
For a Jewish cowboy who's pro gay marriage, this is the lions' den, but Kinky gets a big Texan welcome: bone-crushing handshakes, shrieks of excitement, requests for autographs and pictures. Two middle-aged women with big hair and industrial-strength jewellery squeeze either side of the candidate with cries of 'Let's make a Kinky sandwich.'
Little Jewford rolls his eyes, while the candidate remains impressively courteous, tipping his hat in a way calculated to melt the coldest Republican heart, and repeats his campaign mantra: 'I just want to work for the people of Texas.'
Inside, Kinky steps up to the microphone and wows the chamber with a wellrehearsed mix of Texas nationalism ('Folks, I agree with Davy Crockett...'), self-deprecating jokes ('As the man said, "You may not be worth a damn, but you're better than what we've got"'), appeals to the maverick spirit of Texas ('Every Texan is an independent at heart'), and cracks about his golfing prowess ('The only two good balls I ever hit were when I stepped on the garden rake').
The audience is charmed. When the (not very difficult) questions come from the floor, Kinky is light on policy, heavy on optimism and good ideas. Will he sign a bill for school reform? 'I will sign anything except [pause] bad legislation.' When they ask a tricky question, he replies, 'Trust me, I'm a Jew: I'll hire good people,' a line which always gets a big hand. He winds up the session - 'May the God of your choice bless you' - and the Fort Benders sail out into the noonday sun, floating on air.
The man at my table leans across and confides, 'We need someone to shake things up.' But he won't say who he'd vote for, or even if he'd sign Kinky's petition.
Kinky seems elated, but on the road to another event, in San Antonio, his inner demons resurface: 'Can we take a chance on someone who makes jokes?' he muses aloud. What about his 'negatives'? He has referred to African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews, feminists and homosexuals in the most unflattering, satirical terms. 'It's all in the songs,' says Little Jewford, wearily. 'It's all out there.' 'Well, at least I don't have legal problems,' says Kinky, looking on the bright side.
Little Jewford, who is at the wheel, reckons that the Republican attack will come if and when Kinky gets on the ballot. To attack him before then would be to legitimise a candidacy that right now is off the radar. He and Kinky speculate about the line of a possible attack. The books and the songs are bursting with sensationally inappropriate material that, taken out of context, could be Swiftboated against him. Kinky reckons that an attempt to demonise him might backfire. Texans like a tough fight, but not a vicious one.
When he's on a roll, Kinky's opponents might seem to have their work cut out. Sometimes, venturing into deep Republican territory to sell his 'message of hope', Kinky's outrageous charm plays well with Texans of every stripe. He's one of them, and they love it. At the San Antonio Rotary Club, there's another vast ballroom, another sea of salad and steak, more bootlace ties, belt buckles the size of licence plates, and faces the colour and texture of rare steak. When Kinky has finished, the crowd rises in a spontaneous ovation. Campaign manager Dean Barkley, watching from the sidelines, can hardly conceal his glee. He knows that Kinky is polling at 18 per cent. Conventional wisdom says that to double that figure by election day is within the realms of the possible. In a three-way race (Republican-Democrat-Independent), a share of the vote in the high 30s would give Kinky a stunning victory, and the keys to the governor's mansion.
Just down the road, another rally in a downtown bar provides a chilling comeuppance: the draughty saloon offers a trestle table loaded with posters, CDs and books, some campaign staff hovering expectantly - and a handful of bored-looking barflies. A woman in a shapeless blue dress tells Kinky she wants a governor with whom she can discuss animal welfare. 'You're a cat lover, right?'
The candidate's mood plunges and team Kinky has to beat a retreat before the event turns sour. Kinky does not like it when his campaign looks like the joke his enemies fervently hope it to be.
As Little Jewford drives us out of San Antonio, chastened by the voters' indifference, Kinky Friedman reflects that Bill Clinton's advice was 'Stay positive and stay humorous.' Ex-governor Jesse Ventura, a committed Kinky supporter, puts it another way: 'Be yourself, then you don't have to remember who you are.'
The Kinky Friedman who is emerging in the course of this bizarre campaign is possibly a more serious figure than many Texans have bargained for, a man with a passion for the political limelight, and a determination to win. In explanation of this, Friedman describes how, a few summers back, on holiday in Cabo San Lucas, he faced death by drowning. 'That clarified a few things in my head,' he says. 'It was time to get serious.'
And then he likes to tell the story of performing with Little Jewford in a Donegal bar. After the set was over, an Irishman pulled him aside. 'You're not really a musician,' he said. 'You're a politician.'
