I Swear to Willie
Texas will put up with a lot from their politicians. Hell, they can cheat, lie, carouse, fornicate, take your money, cuss, demand to see your tampons, put up graven images on the state capitol grounds, shoot law-abiding coyotes, be a drunkard, smoke weed, and even be rude.
But, there is one thing they cannot do: use Willie Nelson for cahooting political purposes.
I need to fess up that I am not a large fan of Kinky Friedman as a politician. He’s run as a Republican, an Independent, and now as a Democrat and he can’t get elected dog catcher or even Junior Alderman at Large in Study Butte, Texas. Mainly because he’s a damfool.
However, like Kinky, I favor the legalization of marijuana. I hate Mexican drug lords, filled prisons, and backed up court systems. It’s an idea long past due. Hell, even the Texas Democratic Party has that in their platform.
So, when Kinky up and decided to run for Agriculture Commissioner in Texas, whoop-te-do. The Ag Commish doesn’t have the power to legalize pot. End of story.
So, we have a guy running for Ag Commish on a platform of ego and publicity who hired another damfool (ever notice how they tend to run in herds?) to be his campaign manager.
This campaign manager had some dog dump dumb ideas.
The Kinky Friedman campaign, looking for a fast lane into the general election, thought offering a primary rival a meeting with Willie Nelson might get them on the road again.
The campaign discussed arranging a meeting between Nelson and challenger Jimmie Ray Hogan to entice him out of the Democratic primary for agriculture commissioner, according to emails obtained by The Dallas Morning News. But the plan went up in smoke before the offer could be presented to Hogan.
So, the bright idea was to get Willie to go talk Kinky’s Democratic primary opponent out of running. Everybody was pretty upset by this kind of tactic and Kinky says he knew nothing about it. I believe him. Kinky knows nothing about a whole bunch of stuff.
And, obviously, nobody ran this by Willie because doing this would probably be illegal. Willie does not mind doing illegal stuff as long as it is the right thing to do. Otherwise, count him missing.
We’re sending Thelma over to talk to Kinky. She says she’s read on some of Texas’ finest bathroom walls that he ain’t near as kinky as he claims to be. Thelma would know.
Juanita Jean, you really oughta publish a book of some of your finest. Just don’t blame ME if putting the book together makes you cuss. It sure does me. Anyway, this partic’lar article about Kinky is a fine example to include in the book.
1I cast my vote for Kinky knowing he hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell because I get a hoot out of voting for Kinkly. Now if he ever got serious and there was a danger of him winning I wouldn’t vote for him. Well maybe as Governor, but on they theory that we’ve had an equally inept governor for years and the state hasn’t burned down.
2Not sure I could vote for a candidate named Kinky no matter who endorsed him. Hope Jimmy Ray gets the party endorsement AND a meet and greet with Willie.
3I have friends who voted for Kinky. I just felt like he got paid off by the opposing party so it would take votes away from a guy who actually probably would have made a pretty good governor. I sure hope you vote for Wendy and Letitia this time. I really do.
4On the outside of Texas perspective, ya’ll gave us the two Bushes, Lyndon Baines Johnson, everything DDE warned us about and those gohmert members of Congress.
But you also gave us Ann Richards, Molly Ivens and Wendy Davis. Elect Wendy Davis, and all is forgiven.
By me, my wife and our parents. Still having a little trouble with my Grumpy Grampy. He still remembers being a young man, taking our lovely Grandmother to New York, when some SOBs, cut off the lights and elevators. Whichever TX idiot said, “let the b@stards freeze in the dark,” still sticks in his craw. Unlike McCain, Grampy still remembers. So he raises you one Wonderful Wendy Governor, a lovely Letitia LT Gov, and he is adamant about holding screwy Louie hostage. In fact he insists that gohmert be returned to TX and water boarded with Dick Cheney at the Bush ranch.
But, Grampy is amenable to negotiation. If torture is illegal under TX law, he’ll happily pay their transportation to GITMO.
5He must have another book coming out after the election. If he hadn’t run for gov, Chris Bell would have won.
6We went to see Kinky when he was running for something. He had a fundraiser at the local bar. He may be an ok singer and writer but he is an awful public speaker. He’s also not very good at working the ever so small crowd. His side kick was way better at it.
I also thought Kinky screwed things up for Chris Bell, to the point that I thought he was a shill for the GOP. Still do.
7My late husband from Louisiana used to look at Kinky and remark that there was no one, absolutely no one, in or out of jail in Louisiana who could be that (fill in the blank). In short, Kinky made him smile.
8He used to be funny, but now he’s just a pain in the backside. I agree about Chris Bell.
9Wow. Four of us liked Chris Bell. That, in terms of how many your calls to legislators count for, would be 400 folks of this persuasion who thinks Chris Bell shoulda won but we had the usual Perry plus the old lady, plus Kinky. Well, life goes on, and the GOP keeps redistricting and screwing up the voting rights and telling everyone that whatever the problem is that they started, that it’s our President’s fault. Sometimes it is, but not usually. The youngish kids (under 45) here have about given up on the gummint. That is sad.
10Cross-eyed from working on sequence and continuity of this blankety blank novel about kids in west Texads. I hope I sell at least a dozen.
Someone oughta make a movie from this blog.
p.s. PKM, hug Grampy for me. I think you should post his picture here.
11Marge Wood, Grampy is the best! He stood behind my parents and allowed them to be their political best. He and Gram are “IT” in my book, along with my parents and wife.
Did a stint in the USAF. My parents and grandparents backed the fact that Boy Howdy needed to learn first hand.
Given my experiences, am a huge supporter that Sec Kerry is all on top of negotiating.
Odd fact, the only “military” fans of intervening are the discredited Ollie North and Dick “military criminal” Cheney. One served, the other is a bigger criminal than the than Boy History Channel, probably the worst disgrace to a military uniform.
12Oh, not Kinky again. 🙁
13So Juanita, now that both teams in the Super Bowl are from states with legalized marijuana, how long before someone introduces a bill to legalize it in Texas?
14Still haven’t forgiven Jim Hightower for “advising” Kinky.
15http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/8401/kinky-friedman-outlines-fundraising-committee