“The Kinkster”, as he often referred to himself, introduced an outlaw spirit and vaudeville showmanship into politics, books and tunes, crossing the boundaries of classic style by smoking cigars and wearing twilight cowboy hats – one such The assistant who had the rarely blurred curly twilight hair that influenced his nickname. “With a name like Kinky,” he once told a reporter, “you have to be famous, otherwise it’s a social embarrassment.”
In the early nineteen seventies, he performed with Kinky Friedman and a satirical country band called the Texas Jewboys, releasing songs such as “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore” and “We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service”. . You.” He toured with Bob Dylan, played chess with Willie Nelson and hung out with presidents of both parties, befriending Bill Clinton as well as George W. Bush. When he met White for a gala dinner in 1997, Arias, he presented a Cuban cigar as a gift.
“Mr. President,” he told Clinton, “don’t think of it as supporting their economy – think of it as burning their farms.”
When he grew tired of traveling and acting, Mr. Friedman turned to writing. He wrote a long-running column in Texas Monthly and a fictionalized account of himself as the detective hero of novels such as “Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola” (1993), “Armadillos and Old Lace” (1994) and ” “God Bless John Wayne” (1995), the books’ hero lived for a living in Greenwich Village, moving back and forth between pristine York Town and his public farm in Texas. Was.
Nature is unsure what to name the house’s playground. Sooner or later, he hopes he will find the answer to “that grand and troubling question that has troubled mankind for ages: What is it that I really want in life – horse manure or pigeon excrement )?”
In his personal life, Mr. Friedman held a strong focus on composting. While living at his ranch, he was a favorite figure among the unquestioning logo of independent-minded Texans, with former Governor Ann Richards, a Democrat, calling him “one of the great natural resources of Texas.”
Mr. Friedman was completely autonomous in his politics, leaning toward the liberal side of the spectrum even while resisting the party label. He first ran for office in 1986, launched a quick marketing campaign for the recess justice in Kerrville, incorporated his farm, and announced his long-shot bid for governor over the next three years, currently playing Demanded the legalization of marijuana and gay marriage. “I support gay marriage,” he defined, “because I believe they have the right to be unhappy just like the rest of us.”
His candidacy was treated at first as a shaggy dog tale, partly because Mr. Friedman looked as if he would handle it himself. He campaigned with one-liners such as: “How hard can it be?,” “He’s not kinky, he’s my governor,” “I’ll sign anything but bad legislation.” “If you elect me the first Jewish governor of the state of Texas,” he declared, “I will lower the speed limit to 54.95.”
Although he was an unprecedented autocratic figure to make it into the polls – another autocratic, Carol Keaton Strayhorn, had also given enough signatures to qualify – promoting himself as a populist, weary Truth-telling addition to hackneyed politicians. He was joined in the post by former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, whose hit run for Minnesota governor provided inspiration for Mr. Friedman.
Mr. Friedman finished fourth with 12 percent of the vote, replacing Republican incumbent Rick Perry, who later served as energy secretary during the Trump administration. Even if the end result was somewhat not what he wanted, he was still proud of the performance. “I won that election,” he said regularly, “everywhere except Texas.”
Richard Samet Friedman was born on November 1, 1944 in Chicago, although he preferred to celebrate his birthday on Halloween in the past. The eldest of three children, he grew up in Houston and Echo Hill Ranch, which his parents purchased and run in the Texas Hill Nation.
Mr. Friedman’s father sold potatoes from a pushcart before serving as a bomber navigator during World War II. He was a psychology instructor at a Texas college, and Mr. Friedman’s mother worked as one of the first speech therapists in Houston community colleges.
Since his parents were not fond of music, they supported their son’s oddball activities, and took him to play chess with Samuel Reshevsky when the Polish grandmaster was passing through Houston on a tour. (Mr. Friedman, who was 7 years younger, said he let Reshevsky win “so as not to hurt his feelings.”) His sister said that when Mr. Friedman was assigned to write a newspaper article, He was also tolerant. The high school football game would later become a story, written entirely in Latin, “that delighted two people and troubled many others.”
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied psychology and marched against segregated lunch counters in his extracurricular presence, Mr. Friedman went to Borneo in 1966 and served with the Pleasure Corps for two years. He played guitar, wrote country songs and returned home to play Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, a spinoff of the western swing team Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.
Working in small-town bars in addition to Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, Mr. Friedman made several albums, starting with “Sold American” (1973). The document features many of their best-known songs, including “Ride ‘Em Jewboy”, a pastoral tribute to the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed”. A controversial national anthem in which he called on women to “take over the kitchen, free the sink”.
“At times, Friedman’s songs satirized small-minded bigotry; At times, those songs represented that fanaticism so perfectly that the line between parody and seriousness became meaningless; And sometimes, those songs used a cloak of satire and satire to promote radical intolerance,” Rolling Stone journalist Jonathan Bernstein wrote in 2018.
Mr. Friedman regularly recalled a 1973 concert in Buffalo, where he said he and the band were attacked on stage by “a bunch of cranked-up homosexuals” who chanted “Get your biscuits. ” but reacted angrily. “At the end of that year, I received the National Organization for Women’s Male Chauvinist Pig Award,” he told the Buffalo Information. “It’s an award I’m still proud of.”
During the 1980s, Mr. Friedman struggled with the price of cocaine while living in pristine New York, where he performed weekly at the Lone Big Nail Café, before moving back to Texas. “I’m a big believer in meeting the demons and overcoming them,” he told Pristine York Instances in 1995. “I left them because I had a lot of friends who were increasingly ‘going to Jesus’. I was completely depressed.”
“Coming back to Texas and the farm saved my life,” he said.
Mr Friedman returned to politics late, running unsuccessfully for Climate Agriculture Commissioner in 2010 and 2014. He also continued to write songs, according to his sister, who said he had recently prepared a documentary, “The Poet of Motel 6,” composed of songs he wrote in the moment of the era.
Along with his sister, the survivors are joined by a brother, Roger.
A few years ago, Mr. Friedman and his sister turned their public farm into a camp for children from Gold Big Name families who lost their parents while serving in the military or working as first responders. Was. , Mr. Friedman also ran an animal shelter on campus, where he hosted a Thanksgiving ceremonial dinner for lost and unwanted dogs, providing howling, tail-wagging accompaniment while playing his guitar.
“I am married to the wind,” he once wrote, “and my children are my animals and the books I have written, and I love them all.”
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