When Kinky Friedman announced he was running for governor, many people gasped when they saw Galveston’s rabbi by his side.
“I don’t usually get involved in politics,” Jimmy Kessler said.
But Kessler has an excuse. He’s known the humorist, country singer and mystery writer since he was 8 or 9. Kessler met Kinky, who’s a couple of years older, at summer camp.
Back then, Kinky was little Richard Friedman. His parents owned the camp. So, decades later, there Kessler was, saying a prayer as Kinky’s campaign kicked off on the “Imus in the Morning” show.
Kinky and his supporters faced the cameras in front the Alamo. That might be symbolic.
Actually, Kinky’s inner circle had met at the bar of the nearby Menger Hotel. That might be symbolic, too. That’s where Teddy Roosevelt went, at least in legend, to find folks who were tough enough for the Rough Riders.
As the show started, Kinky bantered with Don Imus.
If Kinky’s elected, the oft-busted Willie Nelson will head the Texas Rangers. Kinky’s hairdresser and business partner, Palestinian Farouk Shami, will be Texas’ ambassador to Israel.
“I’m a Jew and I hire good people,” Kinky said in one official pronouncement.
Kinky’s spiritual adviser, country singer Billy Joe Shaver, is a born-again Christian.
Imus took this bunch of characters as a joke.
Then Kessler said a prayer. He mentioned the biblical story of the flight from Egypt. When the slaves painted their doors with blood, they used brushes made of hyssop. Individually, each reed is weak and apt to break. Collectively, the reeds made a strong brush to paint an enduring symbol.
Imus recognized something important had happened. While many might take the Kinky campaign as a stunt, some people in the crowd were serious.
I asked the rabbi to tell the funniest story he knew about his friend of almost 50 years. He was stumped. I think it was because he knows Friedman too well. He knows that zany fellow really is a serious man.
When the two friends were fraternity brothers at the University of Texas, Friedman led demonstrations to end segregation. When he visited Kessler, then a rabbinical student in Jerusalem, Friedman spent weeks talking to Palestinians.
Friedman, bandleader of the improbably named Texas Jewboys, wrote the first song about the Holocaust ever played on country music stations in rural Texas. Behind the outrageous, folksy, cigar-chomping character there’s a serious man.
If Kinky is elected, it’ll be against the law to declaw cats in Texas. And if he’s not elected, he’ll still run the funniest campaign in a state where elections are always funny.
But it seems to me this joke is already out of control. Serious people are asking the obvious question: Jesse Ventura did it in Minnesota. Arnold Schwarzenegger did it in California.
What’s to keep Kinky from getting elected in Texas?
