Governor Kinky?

Galveston, Texas — Kinky FRIEDMAN, country singer turned mystery writer, is still jazzed. He's in a car hurtling from Houston to this small oil-and-tourism town on the Gulf of Mexico, and he's a talking jukebox. Put in a question and listen to him riff about himself and other musicians, about politics and politicians, about books and his beloved Texas. A fat -- and illegal -- Cuban stogie is wedged between his fingers, and you can just forget (he uses a slightly shorter word) the two small "no smoking" stickers pasted on the dashboard of the rental car.

It's an hour's drive to Friedman's noon gig, and Kinky, the self-proclaimed Jewish Cowboy of Texas, among other less savory descriptions, talks for all but maybe six minutes of it, the topics as varied as the coastal plain here is flat. But slouched in the passenger seat, Friedman keeps circling back to the same point: the more than 200 people who wedged themselves into Houston's Murder by the Book bookstore the night before to hear his half-hour spiel.

And to hear Friedman, an enigmatic blend of Johnny Cash and Mel Brooks, talk about why he's running for governor of Texas.

His campaign slogans sound like a Catskills comedy shtick. "Kinky Friedman: Why the hell not?" And: "How hard can it be?" Yet Friedman insists he's a serious candidate, more in the spirit of Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger than Pat Paulsen or Alice Cooper, the shock-rocker who once ran for Arizona governor as "a troubled man for troubled times."

"I'm not running to make people think I'm making fun of it, like Gary Coleman was" in the California recall, Friedman says. "I'm running to win this thing. I'm going to roll the dice, to bet on Texas. I've traveled all across this state as a musician, as an author, and I know it better, I'm more in touch with the people than any politician out there. That's the point."

But are the people in touch with Kinky, who published what he says is the last of his 17 mystery books, "Ten Little New Yorkers," last month? Bruce Buchanan, a political analyst at the University of Texas at Austin, believes Friedman faces a tough road converting his celebrity status -- which is not A-list to begin with -- to political support.

"He is not known in any widespread way; he's going to need media on steroids," Buchanan says. "What really matters is can he get on the ballot, which requires signatures, and get media coverage, which is possible but not certain. If he can do either or both of those things, he can introduce some uncertainty" into the race.