Kinky Friedman, who grew to become a Texas people hero as a flamboyant singer-songwriter, satirist, raconteur and would-be politician, working for governor in 2006 whereas jokingly declaring that he was neither pro-life nor pro-choice, however as a substitute “pro-football,” died June 26 at Echo Hill, his ranch exterior Medina, Tex. He was 79.The trigger was Parkinson’s illness, mentioned his sister, Marcie Friedman.“The Kinkster,” as he generally known as himself, introduced an outlaw spirit and vaudeville showmanship to politics, books and music, pushing the bounds of excellent style whereas chomping on a cigar and donning a black cowboy hat — an adjunct that hardly hid the curly darkish hair that impressed his nickname. “With a reputation like Kinky,” he as soon as informed a reporter, “try to be well-known, or else it’s a social embarrassment.”Starting within the early Seventies, he carried out with a satirical nation band known as Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, releasing songs resembling “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore” and “We Reserve the Proper to Refuse Service to You.” He toured with Bob Dylan, performed chess with Willie Nelson and palled round with presidents from each events, befriending Invoice Clinton in addition to George W. Bush. When he visited the White Home for a gala dinner in 1997, he introduced a Cuban cigar as a present.“Mr. President,” he recalled telling Clinton, “don’t consider it as supporting their financial system — consider it as burning their fields.”When he bored with touring and performing, Mr. Friedman turned to writing. He had a long-running column in Texas Month-to-month and solid a fictional model of himself because the detective hero of novels together with “Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola” (1993), “Armadillos and Outdated Lace” (1994) and “God Bless John Wayne” (1995). Like the true Mr. Friedman, the books’ protagonist lived in Greenwich Village for a time, shifting backwards and forwards between New York Metropolis and his household ranch in Texas.The character is uncertain what place to name residence. Finally, he hopes to “discover the reply to the grand and troubling query that has haunted mankind by means of the ages: What’s it that I really need out of life — horsemanure or pigeon [excrement]?”In his personal life, Mr. Friedman selected the manure. Dwelling off his ranch, he grew to become a beloved determine for a sure model of independent-minded Texan, with former governor Ann Richards, a Democrat, calling him “certainly one of Texas’s nice pure assets.”Mr. Friedman was resolutely unbiased in his politics, resisting social gathering labels at the same time as he tended towards the libertarian facet of the spectrum. He first ran for workplace in 1986, mounting a quixotic marketing campaign for justice of the peace in Kerrville, close to his ranch, and launched his long-shot bid for governor almost three many years later, whereas calling for the legalization of playing, marijuana and same-sex marriage. “I assist homosexual marriage,” he defined, “as a result of I consider they’ve proper to be simply as depressing as the remainder of us.”His candidacy was initially handled as a joke, partially as a result of Mr. Friedman appeared to deal with it that approach himself. He campaigned on a sequence of one-liners: “How onerous might it’s?,” “He ain’t Kinky, he’s my governor,” “I’ll signal something however unhealthy laws.” “For those who elect me the primary Jewish governor of the state of Texas,” he declared, “I’ll cut back the pace restrict to 54.95.”However he grew to become a uncommon unbiased to make it on the poll — one other unbiased, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, additionally acquired sufficient signatures to qualify — after touting himself as a populist, truth-telling different to drained previous politicians. He was joined on the path by Jesse Ventura, the previous professional wrestler whose profitable run for Minnesota governor provided inspiration for Mr. Friedman.Taking over Republican incumbent Rick Perry, who later served as power secretary throughout the Trump administration, Mr. Friedman completed fourth, with 12 % of the vote. If the consequence wasn’t fairly what he needed, he nonetheless appeared pleased with the publicity. “I gained that election,” he typically mentioned, “all over the place however Texas.”Richard Samet Friedman was born in Chicago on Nov. 1, 1944, though he most popular to have a good time his birthday a day earlier, on Halloween. The oldest of three youngsters, he grew up in Houston and at Echo Hill Ranch, which his mother and father purchased and ran within the Texas Hill Nation.Mr. Friedman’s father had offered potatoes from a pushcart earlier than serving as a bomber navigator throughout World Conflict II. He grew to become a psychology professor on the College of Texas, and Mr. Friedman’s mom labored as one of many first speech therapists in Houston public faculties.Whereas his mother and father weren’t musical, they supported their older son’s idiosyncratic pursuits, taking him to play chess with Samuel Reshevsky when the Polish grandmaster was passing by means of Houston on a tour. (Mr. Friedman, who was 7, mentioned that he let Reshevsky win “in order to not damage his emotions.”) His sister mentioned they had been additionally tolerant when Mr. Friedman was assigned to write down a newspaper article a few highschool soccer recreation, then turned in a narrative that was written totally in Latin, “which happy two folks and irritated many others.”After graduating from the College of Texas at Austin, the place he studied psychology and marched in opposition to segregated lunch counters in his spare time, Mr. Friedman went to Borneo in 1966, serving for 2 years with the Peace Corps. He performed guitar, wrote nation songs and returned residence to kind Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, a riff on the western swing group Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.Acting at small-town bars in addition to Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, Mr. Friedman launched greater than a dozen albums, starting with “Bought American” (1973). The document featured lots of his best-known songs, together with “Trip ’Em Jewboy,” a rustic tribute to the 6 million Jews killed within the Holocaust, and “Get Your Biscuits within the Oven and Your Buns within the Mattress,” a controversial nation ditty through which he known as on girls “to occupy the kitchen, liberate the sink.”“Generally, Friedman’s songs lampooned small-minded bigotry; generally, these songs embodied that bigotry so absolutely that the road between parody and seriousness grew to become meaningless; and generally, these songs used a veneer of humorous irony and satire to site visitors in edgy intolerance,” Rolling Stone journalist Jonathan Bernstein wrote in 2018.Mr. Friedman typically recalled a 1973 live performance in Buffalo, the place he mentioned he and the band had been attacked onstage by “a bunch of cranked-up lesbians” that reacted angrily to “Get Your Biscuits.” “Later that 12 months, I obtained the Nationwide Group for Girls’s male chauvinist pig award,” he informed the Buffalo Information. “It’s an award I’m nonetheless pleased with.”Throughout the Eighties, Mr. Friedman struggled with cocaine use whereas dwelling in New York, the place he performed weekly on the Lone Star Cafe earlier than shifting again to Texas. “I’m an enormous believer in assembly demons and conquering them,” he informed the New York Occasions in 1995. “I gave them up as a result of I had a number of pals ‘going to Jesus’ in fast succession. I used to be completely depressed.”“Coming again to Texas and the ranch saved my life,” he added.Mr. Friedman returned to politics late in life, unsuccessfully working for state agriculture commissioner in 2010 and 2014. He additionally continued to write down music, in response to his sister, who mentioned he had simply accomplished a document, “The Poet of Motel 6,” composed of songs he wrote previously 12 months.Along with his sister, survivors embrace a brother, Roger.A number of years in the past, Mr. Friedman and his sister turned their household ranch right into a camp for the kids of Gold Star households, who misplaced a father or mother whereas serving within the army or working as a primary responder. Mr. Friedman additionally ran an animal shelter on the property, internet hosting a Thanksgiving feast for misplaced and deserted canine who provided a howling, tail-wagging accompaniment to his guitar taking part in.“I’m married to the wind,” he as soon as wrote, “and my youngsters are my animals and the books I’ve written, and I really like all of them.”