2006.07.19: July 19, 2006: Headlines: Figures: COS - Malaysia: Writing - Malaysia: Humor: Election2006 - Friedman: Canton Repository: Kinky Friedman has lived a life that could, and soon might, inspire the world's most entertaining political attack ad
Peace Corps Online:
Directory:
Malaysia:
Special Report: Author, Humorist and Malaysia RPCV Kinky Friedman:
February 9, 2005: Index: PCOL Exclusive: RPCV Kinky Friedman (Malaysia) :
2006.07.19: July 19, 2006: Headlines: Figures: COS - Malaysia: Writing - Malaysia: Humor: Election2006 - Friedman: Canton Repository: Kinky Friedman has lived a life that could, and soon might, inspire the world's most entertaining political attack ad
Kinky Friedman has lived a life that could, and soon might, inspire the world's most entertaining political attack ad
"I've been stoned a lot of times,'' he says. "And I've been involved with a lot of beautiful women. And I don't regret any of it.'' "I quit doing cocaine,'' Kinky says, "when Bob Marley fell out of my left nostril.'' Author, Musician, and candidate for Governor of Texas, Kinky Friedman served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia in the 1960's.
Kinky Friedman has lived a life that could, and soon might, inspire the world's most entertaining political attack ad
Kinky Friedman's Twisted Path to Politics
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
By Peter Carlson The Washington Post
Advertisement
FORT WORTH, Texas--Kinky Friedman has lived a life that could, and soon might, inspire the world's most entertaining political attack ad.
"I've been stoned a lot of times," he says. "And I've been involved with a lot of beautiful women. And I don't regret any of it."
He was born Richard Friedman in 1945 in Chicago, but his parents soon moved to Texas. His mother was a speech therapist, his father a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas. In 1952, they founded Echo Hill, a Jewish summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, where Kinky worked as a counselor and began performing with longtime sidekick Shelby (AKA "Jewford"), singing old folk songs and a new one that Kinky wrote at age 11: "Old Ben Lucas, had a lot of mucus coming right out of his nose..."
"He was energetic, he was pushing the envelope and he was doing things to irritate people," Jewford recalls. "He was pretty much the same as he is now."
At the University of Texas, he was nicknamed Kinky--a reference to his hair, not, alas, to anything more risque. After graduating in 1966, he joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Borneo, where, he says, "I was supposed to teach agriculture to people who had been farming successfully for 2,000 years."
Back home in the early '70s, he formed the Texas Jewboys. Kinky, who played guitar, wrote some soulful, sensitive ballads, but what inspired a cult following were his outrageous comic songs: among them, a satire of antifeminists called "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed," and a parody of Merle Haggard's "Okie From Muskogee" called "(Lower End of the Intestinal Tract) From El Paso," which suggested that men from that Texas city were a tad too fond of sheep.
Kinky had some success--he played the Grand Old Opry, joined Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review and toured with Willie Nelson--but by the early '80s, his career was tanking, his longtime girlfriend had died in a car crash and he was doing way too much dope.
"He was high on 27 different herbs and spices," says Jimmie "Ratso" Silman, a Washington TV cameraman who has played backup guitar for Kinky off and on since the '70s. "He was a different person back then, definitely fairly repellent as a human being."
"I quit doing cocaine," Kinky says, "when Bob Marley fell out of my left nostril."
Actually, he quit doing cocaine when he moved into a trailer on the grounds of his parents' camp and began a second career writing comic mystery novels. The novels--he wrote 17--feature a country singer-turned-detective named Kinky Friedman, who smokes cigars, cracks a lot of jokes and occasionally solves a case.
"The point wasn't the mystery, it was the voice," says Evan Smith. "The guy has got one of the most extraordinary authorial voices."
When Smith became the editor of the Texas Monthly in 2000, he hired Kinky as a columnist. The column was funny and very popular, but editing the Kinkster wasn't always easy. Once he did a column about ... well, we can't say what it was about, for the same reason that Smith wouldn't run it.
"Kinky is 60 going on 12," Smith says.
A few years ago, Kinky called Smith at 7 in the morning, grumbling that he couldn't think of an idea for a column. Smith blurted out a suggestion: "Why don't you run for something?"
So Kinky wrote a column about running for governor. Smith thought he was kidding. So did everybody else. But Kinky--who, in his only other stab at elective office, ran unsuccessfully for justice of the peace back in the '80s--decided to make a serious run.
"I said, 'If you're really serious, you can't write for us,' " Smith recalls. " 'When you announce officially, I'm going to have to fire you.' "
Early in 2005, Kinky announced his candidacy on the Don Imus radio show and Smith fired him. Now, Smith hopes Kinky will lose so he can start writing the column again. He's fond of Kinky. In fact, he's fond of both Kinkys.
"There's definitely the act and the person," he says. "The person is more insecure and more sweet. He is one of the most genuinely sweet-tempered people I've ever met. You see it when he's with children or animals. ...
"There's a definite sadness about him. He's alone. His mother and father are dead--he was very close to them--and he's not married. In a way, this campaign is a way for him to be out with a lot of people."
When this story was posted in July 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| Bush nominates RPCV Ron Tschetter to head PC President Bush has nominated Ron Tschetter to serve as Director of the Peace Corps. Tschetter, 64, is the president of D.A. Davidson & Co., an employee-owned investment firm based in Montana who first got involved with the Peace Corps in 1966, when he volunteered with his wife to work as family planning advisers in India. He is a former Chairman of the National Peace Corps Association.
PCOL Comment: Congratulations to the Bush administration for an inspired choice for Peace Corps Director. Ron Tschetter is not only an RPCV but was Chairman of the NPCA. Best wishes to Mr. Tschetter on his future tenure as Director of the Peace Corps. |
| Changing the Face of Hunger In his new book, Former Congressman Tony Hall (RPCV Thailand) says humanitarian aid is the most potent weapon the United States can deploy against terrorism. An evangelical Christian, he is a big believer in faith-based organizations in the fight against hunger. Members of Congress have recently recommended that Hall be appointed special envoy to Sudan to focus on ending the genocide in Darfur. |
| PC will not return to East Timor in 2006 Volunteers serving in East Timor have safely left the country as a result of the recent civil unrest and government instability. Latest: The Peace Corps has informed us that at this time, the Peace Corps has no plans to re-enter the country in 2006. The Peace Corps recently sent a letter offering eligible volunteers the opportunity to reinstate their service in another country. |
| Chris Dodd considers run for the White House Senator Chris Dodd plans to spend the next six to eight months raising money and reaching out to Democrats around the country to gauge his viability as a candidate. Just how far Dodd can go depends largely on his ability to reach Democrats looking for an alternative to Hillary Clinton. PCOL Comment: Dodd served as a Volunteer in the Dominican Republic and has been one of the strongest supporters of the Peace Corps in Congress. |
| Vasquez testifies before Senate Committee Director Vasquez testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on his nomination as the new Representative to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture replacing Tony Hall. He has been the third longest serving Peace Corps Director after Loret Ruppe Miller and Sargent Shriver. PCOL Comment: Read our thanks to Director Vasquez for his service to the Peace Corps. |
| Interview with a Hit Man RPCV John Perkins says that for many years he was an "economic hit man" in the world of international finance whose primary job was to convince less developed countries to accept multibillion dollar loans for infrastructure projects that left the recipient countries wallowing in debt and highly vulnerable to outside political and commercial interests. In this exclusive interview for "Peace Corps Online," Colombia RPCV Joanne Roll, author of Remember with Honor, talks to Perkins about his Peace Corps service, his relation with the NSA, "colonization" in Ecuador, the consequences of his work, why he decided to speak out, and what his hopes are for change. |
| Peace Corps stonewalls on FOIA request The Ashland Daily Tidings reports that Peace Corps has blocked their request for information on the Volkart case. "After the Tidings requested information pertaining to why Volkart was denied the position — on March 2 — the newspaper received a letter from the Peace Corps FOIA officer stating the requested information was protected under an exemption of the act." The Dayton Daily News had similar problems with FOIA requests for their award winning series on Volunteer Safety and Security. |
| PCOL readership increases 100% Monthly readership on "Peace Corps Online" has increased in the past twelve months to 350,000 visitors - over eleven thousand every day - a 100% increase since this time last year. Thanks again, RPCVs and Friends of the Peace Corps, for making PCOL your source of information for the Peace Corps community. And thanks for supporting the Peace Corps Library and History of the Peace Corps. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come. |
| History of the Peace Corps PCOL is proud to announce that Phase One of the "History of the Peace Corps" is now available online. This installment includes over 5,000 pages of primary source documents from the archives of the Peace Corps including every issue of "Peace Corps News," "Peace Corps Times," "Peace Corps Volunteer," "Action Update," and every annual report of the Peace Corps to Congress since 1961. "Ask Not" is an ongoing project. Read how you can help. |
| RPCV admits to abuse while in Peace Corps Timothy Ronald Obert has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a minor in Costa Rica while serving there as a Peace Corps volunteer. "The Peace Corps has a zero tolerance policy for misconduct that violates the law or standards of conduct established by the Peace Corps," said Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez. Could inadequate screening have been partly to blame? Mr. Obert's resume, which he had submitted to the Peace Corps in support of his application to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, showed that he had repeatedly sought and obtained positions working with underprivileged children. Read what RPCVs have to say about this case. |
| Why blurring the lines puts PCVs in danger When the National Call to Service legislation was amended to include Peace Corps in December of 2002, this country had not yet invaded Iraq and was not in prolonged military engagement in the Middle East, as it is now. Read the story of how one volunteer spent three years in captivity from 1976 to 1980 as the hostage of a insurrection group in Colombia in Joanne Marie Roll's op-ed on why this legislation may put soldier/PCVs in the same kind of danger. Latest: Read the ongoing dialog on the subject. |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: Canton Repository
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Malaysia; Writing - Malaysia; Humor; Election2006 - Friedman
PCOL33775
62