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Richard “Kinky” Friedman — the provocative and flamboyant Texas satirist who mounted a spirited marketing campaign for governor in 2006 and was identified for his boundary-pushing music and deep love for animals — died this week. He was 79.
Friedman died at his longtime household dwelling at Echo Hill Ranch in Medina, his mates Cleve Hattersley and Kent Perkins mentioned. Friedman had Parkinson’s illness, Hattersley mentioned in an interview.
“He was a communicator. An uncommon, however very pointed and poignant communicator,” Hattersley mentioned. “He may deliver you to tears on stage. He may make you roll on the ground in laughter.”
The iconoclastic Friedman ran for governor as an impartial in opposition to Republican incumbent Rick Perry in 2006. Regardless of a colourful marketing campaign, Friedman completed fourth within the race.
“Kinky Friedman was a bigger than life Texas icon and can be remembered as one of the crucial attention-grabbing personalities in Texas politics,” Perry mentioned in an announcement to The Texas Tribune on Thursday. “Kinky’s run for governor in 2006 made an in any other case grueling marketing campaign cycle truly enjoyable. Might he relaxation straightforward after a life lived to the fullest.”
Friedman additionally ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for agriculture commissioner in 2010 and in 2014. He rose to Texas celeb standing for his outsized persona, pithy one-liners and signature look: curly hair poking out from beneath a black cowboy hat, cigar in hand.
“He has been described as a provocateur, and it’s not in a damaging means,” Perkins mentioned. “His goal was to impress thought to make individuals assume.”
Friedman was born in Chicago in 1944 to Russian Jewish dad and mom. The household moved to Texas the 12 months after Friedman was born and finally settled in Medina, the place his dad and mom based the Echo Hill Ranch summer season camp. He graduated in 1966 with a bachelor’s diploma in psychology from the College of Texas at Austin.
Within the early Nineteen Seventies, Friedman shaped the satirical nation band Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jewboys — which penned songs like “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore” and “Get Your Biscuits within the Oven and Your Buns within the Mattress.” The latter tune, which made enjoyable of feminism, helped Friedman earn the Nationwide Group for Girls’s “Male Chauvinist Pig Award.”
On the identical time, he gained the respect of musical titans like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson.
Perkins, an actor, met Friedman at a piece Christmas get together within the mid-Nineteen Seventies. Perkins was with Columbia Footage, and Friedman with Columbia Information. They discovered one another amongst a whole bunch of company as a result of each wore cowboy hats with their tuxedos.
The person Perkins received to know was a humorous, trustworthy, deep thinker who loved fame however didn’t care about cash. Friedman would meet somebody at a live performance and keep in mind their title if he bumped into them later at one other metropolis’s airport. He would invite Perkins for a “monetary bloodletting” in Las Vegas when he received paid for a e book deal. He may tip $30 on a $10 lunch.
“Anybody that wished to befriend him, he was variety to; he didn’t shut individuals out even when many others did,” Perkins mentioned. “Kinky was adored and cherished within the leisure business by giants.”
Within the late Nineteen Seventies, Friedman performed each Sunday night time on the Lone Star Cafe in New York Metropolis, Hattersley remembered. Hattersley’s job grew to become getting him on stage and conserving him there. Hattersley recounted the storied company who got here to see him, corresponding to actor Robin Williams and John Belushi and different forged members of Saturday Evening Stay.
There was nobody else in nation music like him, Hattersley mentioned. He recalled his larger-than-life buddy as a “connection level” who launched him to all kinds of individuals he by no means would have met. And his lyrics had been “insane” — a mirrored image of the revolutionary occasions of the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies wherein they’d lived.
As soon as, Friedman famously sprayed the New York Rangers hockey crew and their wives with beer whereas sporting a protracted jersey, cowboy boots and no pants.
“The irreverence that he was in a position to get away with opened up extra concepts,” Hattersley mentioned. “Proper now we’re in sort of a time in society the place phrase utilization is being suppressed, and language is being codified virtually to the purpose of hieroglyphics and a lot is being unnoticed. Kinky by no means left something out.”
Later, Friedman turned to writing books, publishing novels that usually featured a fictionalized model of himself, together with “Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola” and “Armadillos and Outdated Lace.” He prevented the Web, didn’t ship textual content messages and wrote his books and columns for Texas Month-to-month with a typewriter.
In politics, Friedman staked out uncommon positions on the time for somebody in search of statewide workplace in Texas, like legalization of marijuana and on line casino playing. He supported same-sex marriage in 2006, lengthy earlier than the Supreme Court docket legalized it nationally, quipping, “I assist homosexual marriage as a result of I consider they’ve proper to be simply as depressing as the remainder of us.”
Friedman additionally supported crackdowns on undocumented immigration, boosting pay for Texas lecturers and ending the loss of life penalty.
Friedman befriended former presidents George W. Bush and Invoice Clinton. He launched his gubernatorial marketing campaign in entrance of the Alamo, the place he known as for Perry’s “unconditional give up.” After he misplaced to Perry in 2006, Friedman backed the previous governor in his failed 2012 presidential bid.
Friedman made his Jewish id a core a part of his public persona — evident in his slogans throughout his 2006 gubernatorial bid, together with “My Governor is a Jewish Cowboy,” and his music such because the tune “Trip ‘Em Jewboy,” a darkish meditation on the Holocaust.
“His Jewishness was central to his politics, his music, hIs books, his life,” mentioned Laura Stromberg Hoke, who’s Jewish and served as Friedman’s press secretary in the course of the 2006 marketing campaign. “That was fairly cool for lots of us youthful people.”
Friedman took in previous canine when their people died, Perkins mentioned, and within the late Nineteen Nineties he based an animal rescue known as Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch. Friedman traced its beginnings to an injured kitten he discovered whereas driving together with his canine, Mr. Magoo. A physician amputated the kitten’s leg. The cat was known as “Fortunate.”
As he neared loss of life, Friedman’s hospital mattress confronted his beloved hummingbird feeder, Hattersley mentioned.
Typically Friedman would ask Perkins to select up fried hen when he went to city. He fed it to his canine, smoked a cigar and smiled. A couple of days in the past, Perkins went to go to Friedman and noticed fantastic-looking dishes of rice and beef stew. He reached for a plate and the prepare dinner stopped him. The meals was for the canine.
“That’s simply so Kinky,” Perkins mentioned.
Renzo Downey contributed to this story.
Disclosure: College of Texas at Austin has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full checklist of them right here.
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