Why Kinky's running for Tx. guv

He got stranded on a cliff in Mexico and thought about dying.

"I was just thinking, when I was on this cliff side all night, that I could've done something more with my life, and I don't mean give it back to the community or like that," Friedman continues. "I just mean that even though what I'd done was some good works, like Utopia Rescue Ranch, I was kind of a Ronald Reagan pitchman. When you're a Gandhi-like spirit, you promote, you tend to sell--like my friend McCall's theory that Jesus Christ and Michelangelo and those kind of people sold shampoo just like him. They made people feel good about themselves. A dealer in hope is what I am, you know? I hadn't thought of it in that way, and that's when I thought about, you know, there should be something more.

"A lot of people, when they're dying, think they should've done something more. But that's what I thought. And then later, the ideas came to me that I have achieved a lot of my dreams. If you just look at my life, you can say, 'Jesus, this guy's achieved a lot of his dreams. He's slept under two presidents at the White House, he's played the Grand Ole Opry, he's eaten monkey brains in the Peace Corps, traveled with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson and is still friends with both of them, and that's great.' And so I figured the real reason I was running was because I have achieved those dreams, and I want to help other people, especially younger Texans, have a chance to achieve some of their dreams. That's really the reason I'm running."

The story, by Robert Wilonsky in the Dallas Observer, has some good stuff from his political advisers and friends.