Letter from Texas / Jim Carroll: Everywhere in the Texan capital, you'll come across T-shirts, caps and bumper stickers emblazoned with the slogan "Keep Austin Weird". It's become an unofficial municipal motto, intended to highlight the city's bohemian, laid-back, freewheeling spirit and, of course, its standing as a liberal oasis in a Republican state.
For most Austinites, tolerating weirdness is a badge of honour. When thousands of bands and film-makers converge on the city every spring for the enormous South By Southwest (SXSW) music and film festivals, folks are happy to say howdy and volunteer to keep the show on the road.
The city may be home to hundreds of booming hi-tech companies camped out in Silicon Hills, but the locals also know that the 50 or so live music venues studded around Sixth Street bring in plenty of dollars (SXSW alone is estimated to be worth over $35 million to the city). Keeping Austin weird is good for the local economy.
One of the best books about Austin's quirks and eccentricities is The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic: A Walk In Austin. In Kinky Friedman's travelogue on the city, he calls his hometown "a whore with a heart of gold flaunting her gaudy necklace in the Texas night".
The cult novelist, humorist and musician may have been born in Chicago, but he's an Austinite now, from the tip of his hat to the toes of his cowboy boots. No surprise, then, that the city has become the hub for Friedman's campaign to become the 48th governor of the Lone Star State.
Having spent his life to date fronting country band The Texas Jewboys, penning songs like They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore and Asshole from El Paso, and turning out 17 detective novels about a Jewish cowboy who quit singing for sleuthing, Richard "Kinky" Friedman has decided the time is right for politics. If all goes according to plan, Friedman will take over from Rick Perry as the man in the governor's mansion later this year.
While it might look like a stunt - and there's a sense it could have begun as a jape - Friedman's campaign has gathered significant momentum in the last few months. There's considerable voter apathy in the state and Friedman has capitalised on this since announcing his intention to run in February 2005 at a press conference outside the Alamo.
In the 2002 election, 71 per cent of eligible voters didn't bother to vote in the poll for governor. With Friedman in the race, this will certainly change.
First, though, he has to get on the gubernatorial ballot. Texan electoral law means an independent candidate such as Friedman has to come up with 45,540 voter signatures to qualify for inclusion on the election day ballot.
He's not the only would-be independent runner, and former Republican state financial officer Carole Keeton Strayhorn also faces a May 11th deadline to get those signatures together. It's a tortuous process which means independents really run two campaigns, which eats away at their cash and stamina.
But the wisecracking Friedman does appear to have the numbers on his side and will probably make the cut. He'll then face the incumbent Perry and Democratic challenger Chris Bell in November's face-off.
Both Republicans and Democrats are expected to try to knock the Kinkster off his stride in the coming months, but he's got some experienced election veterans in his corner and won't go quietly.
At a public rally in Austin during South By Southwest, Friedman set out his stall with a pretty unconventional stump speech. Yes, he has policies and plans to cover education, energy and transparency in government.
Kinky, though, wants to win this one by being himself. "My goal is to get the politicians out of politics," he said. "I have no political experience whatsoever, but I have a lot of human experience." Those rooting for Friedman will tell you stranger things have happened and the governor's mansion has provided lodgings to some eccentric characters.
This is the state, after all, where Wilbert Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel went from flogging his Hillbilly Flour products on radio shows to winning an election using the Ten Commandments as his policy document. Kinky could fit right in.