Plural Possessive Coin Of The Spirit

(prepares Jim Hightower impersonation voice) Heidi, hire yew? I got a riddle for yew; who’s as country as a dozen brown eggs, can be as nutty as a squirrel’s breakfast, rides a Yom Kippur Clipper that stops on a dime and picks it up, and wants to reduce the speed limit in Texas to 54.95?



You guessed it, it’s none other than Kinky Friedman, who got his very nickname when a college roommate called him “Kinky” for his messy curly black hair, the one and only original black Stetsoned, Montecristo No. 2-chomping, spiritual advertising Jewish cowboy, and the only political candidate in American history to have ever openly admitted and has written extensively about his past cocaine use, to have flown in Led Zeppelin's private plane, and to have performed front and center at the Grand Ole Opry, certainly all out of the ordinary in a world where individualism and independence in politics is as scarce as hen’s teeth.



Kinky (who was born Richard) is the son of a speech therapist and an educational psychology professor, who taught at the Austin campus of the University of Texas, and, during the summers, ran with the whole family a camp for children ages 7 to 13, in the Texas hill country that has lasted for 52 years. He has written dozens of humorous Country-Western songs, including his first single in 1966 with a local band called King Arthur and the Carrots titled "Schwinn 24" as well as songs like "Beach Party Boo Boo." which were parodies of surfing songs by Jan and Dean. He eventually during the ‘70s infused social satire into the fringes of country music as he formed the band Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, with extravagant stage shows loaded with chauvinism and personality in anthems such as "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore","Get Your Biscuits in the Oven (And Your Buns in the Bed)." and to this day even is the writer of the only country song ever recorded about the Holocaust, “Ride 'Em, Jewboy”.



After taking a break from music, Kinky Friedman claims to have spent the rest of the 1970’s "lost on 11 herbs and spices." and lived with his family “about as long as Jack Kerouac lived with his mother.” in a loft in New York on Vandam Street all the way up into the mid-80’s. It was then he began plotting his return with a vengeance; by becoming a successful mystery novelist with over 20 books to his credit to date including: “Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola”, “Armadillos and Old Lace”, and “Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned”. Each of the novels features a eponymous, black Stetsoned, cigar-chomping alter ego who solves crimes but in the end of each hard-working day returns to a life not riddled with money and enjoys a good book and smoke, and as Friedman explains, “my attitude all along was very Gandhi-like. The only currency I value is the coin of the spirit. That's very important in my life.” He is also famous for saying, “Money may buy you a fine dog, but only love can make it wag its tail.”

Kinky Friedman also volunteered for Peace Corps after college after being inspired by President John F. Kennedy, where after trying to serve in Tanzania, served in Borneo from 1967-1969 by helping distribute seeds and working as an agricultural extension worker, teaching people who did farming professionally for more than two thousand years how to improve their methods. Time and time again he has said how “all of us have some little village in our hearts that we’ll probably never see again.” with his being Longlama all the way back in the "jolo", or jungle, which he proudly ruminates that he “not only learned a lot, but it was the best work any of us ever did.” he also has shared many anecdotes of his experiences, including that the natives are former headhunters, that the Kayan tribe are a very peaceful people these days who love to fish who he fished with, and even mentioned their word for fishing means “visiting the fish” because they never catch any, and then get drunk from a rice wine they make called tuoc, lighting torches and having fun along the riverside. He also credits his primary accomplishment as introducing the Frisbee to the natives, which “they used to make their lips big.” (giggles)

Finally, Friedman is known for his magnanimity and philanthropic work, especially in his unconditional love for animals. He is an animal rights activist having founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, whose mission is to care for stray, abused and aging animals, who has saved more than 1,000 dogs from euthanasia (Recently Friedman adopted 24 greyhounds from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina) He is also pushing for the closure of a horse-slaughter plant in Kaufman, Texas, thirty miles south of Dallas, and is following in the footsteps of Sir Paul Newman and has made his own Kinky Friedman Private Stock salsa, where proceeds go to the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, and also partnering with Farouk Shami to sell Holy Land olive oil, with all the profits going to fund summer camps for Palestinian and Israeli children to get together.



And now......Kinky is expanding this extension of the truth-telling into yet another venue…..politics…..where once again he has something to prove to the world, once and for all, after once admitting after a failed run for Justice of the Peace in 1986 that by age 60 he wanted nothing more or less than to be the Salsa King of Texas, and he is putting his spiritual calling full circle.

Friedman believes what Henry Kissinger (whose politics were certainly as polarizing as most) said, in that “90 percent of politicians give the other 10 percent a bad name.” Friedman makes the most truest point that Texas has not elected an independent for governor since 1859 (Sam Houston) and that ever since then, America has become “wussified”, where political correctness has taken the nation hostage and has swallowed independence from within, where our rigid two-party system has hijacked each state and has left us with nothing but an endless behavior cycle where “the Democrats got a good idea, the Republicans shoot it down. The Republicans have an idea, the Democrats kill it.“ and has left us in an albatross of a situation where we have “a majority of nonwhite, Democratic-leaning people, and the Democrats can’t get to first base in Texas.” while “the Republicans control all the leadership positions in our legislature, and they can’t get any legislation passed.” and all of this is happening while he believes the leaders of both parties are folks who just like to stare at themselves in the mirror, where $100 million each election season is being spent on negative attack ads and media coverage to get a job that is only worth $100,000 each year, which I agree with Friedman 110% when he says, “Do you think Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King would do that? They all died broke, right? Would Jesus have paid $100 million to buy an election? I don’t think they would. Those guys were independent.”



Friedman claims that a near-death experience he endured in Cabo San Lucas about five years ago inspired him to consider running:

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“I was stranded, clutching on the side of a cliff for almost 48 hours in Cabo San Lucas five or six years ago. I was on vacation, and I got hit by a freak wave as I was walking on the beach one night that threw me up against the cliff. I thought I was going to die. And I was stranded on this cliff and it was pitch black; I was dehydrated, and I thought no one would find me. This was a private beach, with really expensive luxury homes—Sly Stallone lives there, people like that—and no one would ever think something bad could happen there. That same night a 16-year-old boy was caught in a similar riptide, along the same stretch of beach, and died. I was eventually rescued.

While I was on the cliffside, I kept thinking that there’s got to be more to life than being a Ronald Reagan pitchman, you know? And I thought, if I live through this, I’m going to do something that might have more meaning, that might help people achieve their own dreams, like I’ve been able to acheive mine.”

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And so Kinky is out doing just that, believing that the whole system needs to be changed, there needs to be a spiritual campaign committed against the status quo, that voices like Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader should be heard and the underdog always deserves a chance, that our ancestors fought at the Alamo to “give us a choice besides plastic or paper.“ that indeed both Jesus and Moses were independents and we have to live up to their spirit and topple the windmills of politics like Rosa Parks toppled segregation and free our system of politicians and lobbyists, that “accidental candidates” like Davy Crockett can speak truth back into our political system and the voices of Mark Twain and Will Rogers can replace those of Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff……and if he can indeed win as an Independent……that can send a shiver up the spine of every career politician in the country, and send a message all across America for the renaissance of political independence, and encouraging far more individuals to break the apathy and do the same thing. And, as Friedman believes, “it’s a perfect storm and a perfect time for an independent to be in here.” and that he can indeed be the one who drives many unlikely voters to the polls, for 71% of Texans did not vote in the last gubernatorial election.



Being an American with a socially conservative heart and a progressive mind, I am rather middle-of-the-road myself, and find myself relating to Kinky’s philosophy. Indeed I absolutely agree with activist Granny D when she says, “Our joy is our longbow!” and it’s because politicians have no sense of humor or common sense that his home state of Texas is ranked 1st in executions, toll roads and property taxes and 50th in public education and care of the elderly, and that indeed “humor is a good way of getting at the truth.” Friedman is a voice of common sense to me, who understands that you’ll be lucky to ever find a candidate nowadays who both supports gay marriage and supports prayer in public schools, who sees the irony in candidates who are against abortion but not against capital punishment, and vice versa, where “NASCAR people never go to the lesbians' tea-houses, and the lesbians never go to NASCAR” and so on. And he’s out to tear through this “wussification”, as he believes Texas is the last stand against wussification in that the cowboy remains and will always remain the greatest export of Texas to the world, regardless of how the word has become derogatorily used and described by some as bullies and loose cannons, and that cowboys really are those who stand up for the little people, the “knight out of time, beloved by all the children of the world.” who is “able to ride, to shoot straight and to tell the truth.” and acts the opposite of politically by standing up for common sense and “finding that beautiful place above politics where things get done.”

I admire many of the stances he is taking in his campaign as well on the issues, especially on education. He understands the obvious that our public schools are losing money over a growing national deficit, an expensive and reckless interventionist foreign policy and fiscal mismanagement, and strives to fund education by legalizing casino gambling and video poker terminals in state bars in a program which he calls “Slots For Tots”. But he also understands that the problem with public education goes far beyond the root of all money itself; he goes beyond the obvious in recognizing that the child-teacher relationship is also crucial, and has said himself, “The human side of it is important. The teaching profession is no longer a great profession. People regard it as just a job. They don't think it's a real job.” He also believes this:

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“When you think the problem with education is all about financial and technological shortfalls, you’re making a mistake, because the problem is human. The answer is to go out and find that great teacher, the one that changes lives; and when we find him or her, we place them in our under-resourced schools where they’re most needed. And then we need to listen to that person when we make policy; learn from him or her—bring them to Austin or bring Austin to them. In other words, money may buy you a fine dog, but only love can make it wag its tail.”

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And that’s what he’s setting out to do; stop the appointing of individuals that have never even seen the inside of a public school classroom like current governor Rick Perry has done, and appoint people with a genuine love for education, people like his friend Dylan Ferrerro, who he says is a fellow Peace Corps volunteer who taught in the jungle in Borneo, as well as in the ghettos of Oakland and special-ed in Comfort, Texas. Moreover, he wants to see young Americans find a voice and get represented in Texas, such as by filling the state university’s Board of Regents with college students who are passionate about education. Kinky is even quoted for saying that he wants bright, young people to run the state because “young people are less corrupt.” and that the governor is “basically like the judge of a big chili cookoff, but you can inspire young people, and you can appoint good people and let them do their job.” And his vision in the end is that Texas will no longer rank at the bottom in public education funding and that through this act of spiritual lifting, we can again “teach the kids that JFK is not an airport, RFK's not a stadium, Martin Luther King ain't a street.”



Moreover, Friedman wants to infuse his good Peace Corps karma right back into the Lone Star State, by creating the Texas Peace Corps, which would allow retirees to 'share their wisdom and love' by teaching music, the arts and shop in the public schools on a volunteer basis.

Friedman also wants to see once and for all that one in four Texan children don’t have any health insurance, and use Minnesota’s model, Minnesota Care, promoted in part by the state’s independent governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura, for improving the quality of health coverage in Texas (Minnesota is currently #1 in health coverage for adults and children) He also shares progressive insights like mine on encouraging the use of more renewable energies such as biodiesel, which he uses in his tour buses, and levying a 1 percent surcharge on Big Oil, Big Gas and big corporations to fund these alternative energy programs, as well as supporting gay marriage and putting an end to the high execution rates in Texas (their criminal population is higher than the entire population of Alaska, with as many as 60% non-violent drug users) by establishing a board that oversees the way the death penalty is used to see to it the wrong guy is never executed. He believes that the capital punishment mistake has gone to covering each and every one of its mistakes, and Texas doesn’t even have the option of sentencing someone to life without parole and it’s only “inject or eject”, who also has said the following:

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"When was the last rich man executed in Texas?" The answer, of course, is never. So if we’re dealing with an imperfect system, the same system that killed another innocent man 2,000 years ago who now is widely regarded as the savior of the world, what have we learned? I’m just asking whether we should be wearing little crosses or Stars of David around our necks, or whether we should be wearing little gold-studded electric chairs. If you’re going to be against abortion you have to be against the death penalty. That’s a very unpopular stand here, by the way. But I stand by it.”

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Kinky also appeals to the socially conservative side of me on tackling political correctness from the other side of the political spectrum on issues like border security, stopping mass smoke regulations and prayer in public schools. Indeed I absolutely agree with Kinky when he ponders over the paranoia of having nondenominational prayer in schools, “What’s wrong with a kid believing in something?” Indeed, “our kids need to believe in something, whether it's a tree or a rock. They don't believe in anything anymore.” and I believe there’s nothing wrong with believing, for I value faith in my life very much and believe it wrong for an individual atheist to decide statewide it is wrong for the Ten Commandments to be placed in any public venue. Whether you believe in a Holy spirit or not and whatever name you choose to address the Holy Spirit by over whichever religion, Kinky Friedman always says, “May the God of your choice bless you.” and atheists and agnostics have every right to believe and pray for something too in public schools, but regardless of belief, no one should have the right to take the right of others to express their belief or say “Merry Christmas!” away. And while I absolutely believe smokers can tend to be quite disrespectful to non-smokers in public places and I support some restrictions, widespread outdoor public bans on smoking are going way too far and leaves me wondering, “How far will this political correctness leak into our liberties…..will burning patchouli or sandalwood incense at the Portland Saturday Market be next?”



Victoria Billings once said, “There is no such thing as being too independent.” I certainly love imagining a governor with no strings attached, one where nobody owns him, totally untainted by politics, where young people, poets, musicians, artists, etc. run the government instead of politicians, who is more concerned about ironing out the problems of the state than his own dress coat and deciding for the interests of the people rather than whether or not one should wear French cuffs, interested A governor who doesn’t meet with the lobbyists but with the people, and Jesse Ventura, despite his follies, lived up to his promise of never meeting with a lobbyist. That convinces me that because Bill Hellsman, who was a mastermind behind both Jesse Ventura and Paul Wellstone’s campaigns, Kinky will bring that same independent spirit to Texas. After all, he promises a recount as the first thing when he becomes Governor, as well as getting rid of the toll roads and instead having four major highways named after Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Bob Wills and Buddy Holly! (giggles) And don’t forget changing the state song, “Texas, Our Texas” to "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore." :)



So I Noah Eaton, the pheromone pharaoh of the Serotonin Sandbox, am more than pleased and delighted to endorse Kinky Friedman for Governor of Texas this November, the one and original guy who never learned to sit too much, LOL! I’m endorsing Kinky because I believe he represents the hope for the future of this great nation, and that he‘s a citizen politician who can bring a breath of fresh air and a heart scattered, smothered and covered to a political establishment that has all but forgotten about the people, and whose victory can inspire a wave of new elected citizen politicians willing stand for the children and dreamers of this nation. This will likely be my only political endorsement of 2006, for though I’m hoping that the Democrats take back either control of the House or Senate in four months, it’s not because I support the Democrats, but because I believe in our checks and balances system and that the minority should always have a say in our system, thus am hoping they gain seats but don’t want to endorse them because I have my reservations with both parties. So let’s throw our Stenson hats up sky-high and offer a high falootin’ holler to Kinky! :)



Later this month, I’m going to contribute $30 to Kinky Friedman’s campaign, and in return, I’m going to get his special, handsome 13-inch tall talking action figure, which features him saying 25 of his favorite one-liners (Kinky himself had a tough time narrowing it down from 60, LOL!) including, “My heroes are teachers, firefighters, cops and cowboys.” and “I’m gonna de-wussify Texas if I have to do it one wuss at a time.” Yep, it’s a win-win situation; I’m supporting an attempt for political individualism, and in return I get a new endorphiny friend to play with! You can bet he’ll be on an upcoming Justice Offbeats episode, guest-starring as yours truly, Kinky Friedman! :)



Have a wonderful Fourth of July everyone, and remember, “Y'all is singular. All y'all is plural. All y'all's is plural possessive.”

XOXO,
Noah Eaton
(Mistletoe Angel)
(Emmanuel Endorphin)