Boyd Matson | Wild Chronicles

kinky friedman on being kinky

This being a big election year, and with one party having trouble falling in love with a candidate, I thought it would be fun to look back at one of my favorite candidates for public office.  Kinky Friedman ran for Governor of Texas a few years ago in one of the most entertaining campaigns ever staged by someone who was serious about getting elected.  He had bumper stickers that read, “He Ain’t Kinky, He’s my Governor”  and “Kinky for Governor, How hard Can It Be?”  For the record he was campaigning against the incumbent Governor of Texas, Rick Perry.

I’ve known Kinky since the mid seventies.  When we first met he was writing and performing country music with a satirical social message.  Satire and irreverent humor don’t usually translate into elected office.  Of course in those days he wasn’t running for anything, although he may have been running from a few things.   He had one band called the “Exxon Brothers”, but correspondence from Exxon’s legal department forced a name change and the group became “Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jew Boys.”  For the benefit of the concerned politically correct, members of the JDL were some of his biggest supporters.  They got the joke and the message.

In 1986 he ran as a Republican for Justice of the Peace in Kerrville, Texas.  He lost that election, an outcome he would duplicate as an independent running for Governor in 2006.  In between his two runs for office, Kinky was still singing some but primarily he became a novelist, writing mystery novels staring himself as a country singer / private detective.  It was during this time in the late 80’s that I drove my red Cadillac down to Kerrville to do a story about Kinky for the TV Show, “USA Today on TV”.

By the way, the red ’63 Cadillac, which still runs and was the car used in all my “Flying the Coupe” stories is now in my driveway and it’s For Sale.  It comes with a copy of all the “Flying the Coupe” stories if anyone is interested.

This video in which Kinky sings some, reads a few lines from one of his novels, and shares a bit of the Kinkster’s philosophy will give you a glimpse of the colorful character that later tried to be Governor.  It may also explain why his campaign got a lot of coverage from the press, but not enough votes from the public.  I say his not winning was a big loss for Texas.  And who knows, had he won, this year Kinky might be the front-runner in the Republican primaries.