Drive-by linking

A few quick shots for your reading pleasure:

-- The Statesman has drawn an analogy between my man David and Dorothy Gale of The Wizard of Oz. It's a proper analogy, when you take it in full context. David is wrapping up the last of the Whistlestop Courthouse Tours this week and next, in Fort Worth and Dallas, then Houston, and completing in San Antonio and Austin.

-- Tonight's debate between HD-134 candidates Ellen Cohen, Martha Wong, and Libertarian Mhair Dekmezian at Rice University promises to be fun. Ryan has the particulars if you want to attend, or if you'd rather stream it live online. I'll be on hand and post a report late tonight or tomorrow.

-- Chris Bell's call for Kinky to pull out of the gubernatorial race was met with sputtering indignation from the former Texas Jewboy, and even more vinegar-laced invective from his supporters, including -- natch -- the Repugnants who are praying Governor MoFo can manage to get re-elected.

Snap, goons: this is about Kinky's supporters, not Kinky. They're the ones who are desperate for an out, and Friedman keeps giving it to them every time he opens his mouth. I think most of them are smart enough not to waste a vote on possibly the worst candidate the state of Texas has even seen, but unless their boy does the smart thing and quits the race, we'll have to test that intelligence theory on Election Day.

A vote for Kinky is a vote for Rick Perry, that's why the hell not.

-- Mark Warner is not going to run for the Democratic nomination for President. Eileen and Greg are sad. Me? Not so much. Warner is too conservative for my taste. He'll be kingmaker of a sort this presidential cycle with his obvious fundraising talents, but I don't look for him to even take the #2 slot on a presidential ticket (if one accepts the rationale for not running for President is to save the wear-and-tear on his wife and kids).

I like Warner as a Senator or even as Governor again, and we 'll let the future sort itself out. And I agree with kos relative to how the 2008 Sweepstakes shifts with Warner out now.

See how easy that was, Kinky? Oh wait, you don't have any family, just a bunch of stray dogs. GTF out of the race anyway, dude. The joke is over.

Pull out, Kinky.

The overnight news from the Dallas paper has Chris Bell asking Kinky Friedman to get out of the race. Kinky's response is to dig in his bootheels.

Here's my message:

Pull out, Kinky. You know you want to.

You're not having fun any longer. All this running around all over Hell's half-acre, having to talk to reporters who keep asking the same damn questions (like 'why do you say "n----r" all the time'), lousy food and weak coffee and hard hotel beds and shitty pillows and everything else about life on the road that you quit years ago when you stopped making music and started writing cheap detective novels.

It's time to go back to the ranch, to your stray dogs, to the cigar-smell infested bunkhouse you call home, take off that nasty hat, brush your slimy teeth and lay it down.

Texas needs you to quit, Kinky. Now.