The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic by Kinky Friedman Page A

a large part of the problem than a small part of the solution. Besides, I’ve got Big Mo on my side. I’m not sure how traveling with a large homosexual will go down with the voters, but hell, I’ll try anything. Just this morning, for instance, I tried making a campaign pitch to my fellow passengers on a crowded elevator. After several of them threatened to call 911, however, it unfortunately put me a little off-message. “Now that I have you people all together,” I told them, “I can’t remember what I wanted you for.”
    O. HENRY: WILLIAM SYDNEY PORTER
    THE ROLLING STONE OF AUSTIN
    Austin’s unique music and independent film scene gave the city the nickname “The Third Coast.” Ex-con and famous writer William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry, christened Austin “The City of the Violet Crown,” a nickname that is still used today. The tag first appeared in a political humor story titled “Tictocq: The Great French Detective, in Austin.” The short story originally appeared in O. Henry’s locally published newspaper
The Rolling Stone
on October 27, 1894. The phrase is used in chapter 2: “The drawing-rooms of one of the most magnificent private residences in Austin are a blaze of lights. Carriages line the streets in front, and from gate to doorway is spread a velvet carpet, on which the delicate feet of the guests may tread. The occasion is the entrée into society of one of the fairest buds in the City of the Violet Crown.”
    William Sydney Porter was born in North Carolina and came to Austin in 1884. He held such varied jobs as clerk, bookkeeper, draftsman, and bank teller. He also acted in local theatrical productions. In 1894 he began publishing the aforementioned weekly newspaper,
The
Rolling Stone.
He also drank heavily and often missed deadlines due to his inebriated state.
    Porter fled to the Honduras following embezzlement charges by his former bank employer. He returned to Austin in 1897 to be with his wife, who was fatally ill, but was promptly arrested and sent to prison for three years. It was during his incarceration in the penitentiary that he began writing short stories under the pseudonym O. Henry (according to some sources, he acquired the pseudonym from a warden called Orrin Henry). His purpose for writing was to earn money to support his daughter Margaret. After he was released from prison, Porter moved to New York City, where he began to write prolifically (ten collections and more than six hundred short stories during his lifetime). He also began to drink prolifically. O. Henry’s last years were dogged by alcoholism, ill health, and financial problems. He rose to literary fame in nine short years, but died an alcoholic at age forty-eight in a New York hospital. At the time of his death, he had twenty-three cents in his pockets. Now that’s a guy after the Kinkster’s own heart.
    Porter’s former Austin residence now houses the O. Henry Museum. He lived in this 1886 Queen Anne–style cottage from 1893 to 1895. The home, at 409 East Fifth Street (phone 512-472-1903), has since been restored and now contains artifacts and memorabilia from his life in Austin. Visitors are welcome.
    CHARLES WHITMAN
    We like to think that everything’s bigger in Texas. This, of course, includes mass murder sprees. I graduated from the University of Texas in Austin in 1965, majoring in a highly advanced liberal arts program known as Plan II. The program was mainly distinguished by the fact that every kid had some form or other of facial tic. The really bright ones are probably sleeping under bridges today, but then again, genius is its own reward.
    Charles Whitman was not a Plan II student, but you can’t have everything. He made straight A’s, he was studying to be an architect, he was a former Marine sharp-shooter, and he was also an Eagle Scout. To put it on a bumper sticker, he was an all-American asshole. One