Kinky Friedman, musical satirist and writer who also ran for Texas governor, dies at 79

Kinky Friedman, author, singer-songwriter and previous Texas gubernatorial candidate, died Thursday right after a many years-extended struggle with Parkinson’s condition. Friedman was 79.

“He died peacefully,” close buddy Kent Perkins, who understood Friedman for about 50 yrs, explained to the Associated Push in confirming the loss of life. He said Friedman died at his family’s ranch in the vicinity of San Antonio.

“He smoked a cigar, went to mattress and hardly ever woke up,” Perkins explained.

Perkins described Friedman as the “last absolutely free human being on earth” and mentioned he experienced an “irreverence about him. He was a fearless author.”

Friedman — born Richard Samet Friedman in Chicago on Nov. 1, 1944 — stirred excitement with his provocative and unapologetic mother nature, which grew to become widely recognized when his band, Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, discovered achievement in the 1970s.

The satirical state band introduced tracks this kind of as “Drop Kick Me, Jesus, By the Aim Posts of Existence,” “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed” and “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Any more.”

But the band’s brash character was apparently not effectively been given by some.

“In 1973, the Texas Jewboys acquired dying threats in Nacogdoches, obtained bomb threats in New York, and required a law enforcement escort to escape radical feminists at the University of Buffalo,” the musician wrote in a particular essay for the September 2001 issue of Texas Month-to-month.

Friedman — who was nicknamed Kinky, or the Kinkster, mainly because of his curly hair — then traveled with Bob Dylan in 1976 as component of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. By the 1980s, right after his band’s achievement had cooled, Friedman turned to a new undertaking: writing.

He penned quite a few New York-centered crime novels, which include “Greenwich Killing Time” and “Roadkill,” that highlighted himself as a detective. At the time of his dying, Friedman experienced prepared additional than 20 guides.

Joking that he needed “a job ideal now,” Friedman elevated his profile when he challenged incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry in the 2006 Texas governor’s race, in accordance to the Houston Chronicle.

The race became prickly. Friedman, a person of 5 candidates, was strike with allegations of racism more than remarks he created in 1980. He denied the accusations, stating that his style of humor was intended to attract reactions.

Offending men and women “was the objective,” Friedman informed the Houston Chronicle in 2006. “That’s what I was undertaking. Which is named social commentary, which is named satire.”

He ran on a campaign that supported homosexual marriage (“I feel they have every ideal to be as miserable as the relaxation of us”) and prayer in faculty (“What’s incorrect with a kid believing in some thing?”) but ultimately completed in very last spot. Perry won reelection.

Reflecting on the race four many years later, Friedman told The Occasions that a lot more musicians must get into politics.

“If the musicians ran the nation, we would not get a hell of a lot completed in the early morning, but we’d function late and we’d be genuine,” he said. “When I’m in a roomful of musicians, individuals are decent individuals, very good individuals. You just cannot say the similar about politicians.”

And he was nonetheless proud of his gubernatorial campaign.

“We gained that race, by the way,” Friedman claimed, “every location but Texas.”