Dear Kinky

By
Glenn W. Smith
– October 9, 2009Posted in: Culture, Music, Politics

Kinky 300x300 Dear KinkyLate one night back in the late fall of ‘74, I was sitting with our friend Bill Barvin in the dark and quiet dining room of Austin’s Pearl Street student co-op. It was chilly, and we were drinking tea pretending we didn’t want beer. I don’t remember how you tracked down Bill, but you stopped by. I guess you know we lost Bill to Lou Gehrig’s disease a few years ago. In his last years he was the location manager for the hit TV show, Law and Order. Law and order were not on our minds that night. I miss him terribly. Anyway, you’d been a camp counselor of Bill’s, and there was something on your mind.

You talked about a conversation you had earlier that day with Bob Dylan. This was late in the Austin era of the cosmic cowboy and the outlaw country singer, short-lived movements that, apparently, bored Dylan into Christianity, briefly. But the Michael Murphy-Willis Alan Ramsey-Willie Nelson-Jerry Jeff Walker-B.W. Stevenson moment had done for your career what shaking a Lone Star longneck does for the suds: sent it flying. That day, Dylan told you the movement was a silly pop distraction, and that you ought to run like hell from it.

What I remember is your sincerity. Dylan’s words confused you, and you didn’t hide the confusion. You rubbed your face a lot. I don’t think you had a cigar. Neither Bill nor I knew what to tell you. I didn’t agree with Dylan’s opinion of the outlaws then and I don’t agree with it now. Well, I didn’t think much of Michael Murphy. I’d been out in Big Bend and I was trying to hitch a ride back to Austin. I’d run into Murphy by chance, and he’d refused me the ride. It shouldn’t have mattered that I was a complete stranger to him, a stranger that at the moment of my desperate request displayed the look and smell of an un-showered, weeklong desert camper. I suspect I told you something along these lines.

Today, many of your friends admire you for your sincere and sensitive side. I know this because they tell me, and because that’s the side I saw that night so long ago. What I want to know is, what’s that side got to do with your second run for governor?

In December of 2007 I was in Las Manitas with Mark McKinnon, a former colleague of mine whose own conversion from Democrat to Bushism was as puzzling to me as the cosmic cowboys were to Dylan. You came into the restaurant and sat briefly with us. I heard you tell Mark how much you loved and respected John McCain. “I’m a McCain man,” I think you said.

Now I read where your heroes are Democrats like Ann Richards and Lady Bird Johnson. Since the difference between John McCain and Ann Richards is enough to reveal the deep inadequacy of the popular Mars/Venus gender differentiation metaphor, I have to ask: what’s up?

In my weak and sentimental moments I’m for a return to Texas of those innocent outlaw music days. I can feel inside me a nostalgic tug in your direction. Today’s politicians don’t even go to Big Bend, unless it’s to play cowboy in the unholy, air-conditioned and gentrified boutiques of Marfa. If they did, I suspect they’d be more than willing to drop me and mine off in the desert, round-trip tickets out of the question, of course.

Have you noticed that there’s no hat-head when Gov. Rick Perry and other pretty Republican hustlers take off their Hollywood Stetsons? I think they might be ghosts of some kind.

But I have to tell Texas voters what Bob Dylan told you about the cosmic cowboy scene. The Kinky Friedman political campaign isn’t going anywhere. It’s even a mystery where it started. Voters ought to run like hell. The problem is, sentiment is a ghostly thing. Exploiting fond but hazy memories or bonds of the past in a bid for the highest office in the state is cheap, unmanly and reckless. Texas made that mistake with Bush. Politically, you’re just a ghost, too. You’re a ghost with hat head.

I can get kind of desperate again for a ride back into Texas, an unkempt and unruly Texas of honest brawling, girls in boots, and our lost friend Bill. But, the true road leads to the future, not the past. That was our very point back then. It’s a grievous thing that it might cross our minds to forsake that lesson now.

Kinky, don’t run. You’re not helping Democrats, you’re not helping Texas. You might help Rick Perry by trying to muck up a Democratic primary. But then, when it’s all over, Perry will toss you ‘cross the room like an old hat. You won’t even leave him with hat-head.

Related Articles:

Tags: , , , , , ,

About Glenn W. Smith

Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”

Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.

In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.

As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.

Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.

Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.

As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”