Kinky Friedman

KINKY FRIEDMAN

Interview and photos by Gregory Ego.

THE KINKY CRUSADER

Prior to publishing his first book in 1986, Kinky Friedman’s notorious career as a country songwriter and singer had, as he puts it, “pretty much tanked.” (The only honor ever bestowed on him was the National Organization for Women’s “Male Chauvinist Pig of the Year” award in 1974 for his song “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed.” Additionally, his backing band was affectionately known as The Texas Jewboys—in honor of Friedman’s dual cultural heritages.) Around the same time that his politically-incorrect occupation was on the skids, he foiled a mugging in New York’s Greenwich Village, and the press declared him a crime fighter. These two currents spurred Friedman towards dabbling in a genre that has held a lifelong interest for him: mystery novels (he’s a fan of Agatha Christie, John D. MacDonald and Raymond Chandler).

Friedman has now published his thirteenth book, The Mile High Club. In his mysteries, the detective is Kinky Friedman, a private dick with penchants for Cuban cigars and Irish whiskey. He and his real-life friends, whom he dubs the Village Irregulars, pursue Nazis and other, assorted killers in his fiction – while Kinky, the writer, continues to inject into his work the stand-up comedy he had always filled his live shows with. One doesn’t necessarily read a Friedman mystery to discover whodunit; it’s his abundant humor along the way that make Spanking Watson, The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover, and Roadkill enjoyable reads.

In addition, Friedman’s literary songs—which waver from the sensitive to the crude—have recently been showcased on a star-studded tribute CD, Pearls in the Snow (Kinkajou Records). It’s spurred the Kinkster (his pet name for himself), to perform live, once again, his ditties like “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews like Jesus Anymore,” “The Ballad of Charles Whitman” (named after the infamous Texas gunman), and “Asshole from El Paso.”

How old are you?

Kinky Friedman: I’ll tell you like this: I’m pretty o-l-d. My personal goals are to be fat, famous, financially fixed, and a faggot by 55. And I am 55. I’ve reached some of those goals.

When you were a lad you were a chess prodigy, weren’t you?

Yeah, I peaked when I was about seven. At seven years old I played the grand master, Samuel Reschevsky.

Who won?

He won. And he told my father that he really hated to have to beat a seven year old. But he can’t take any chances. A seven-year-old beats him, it’s headlines, the end of his career. Never play chess with a seven-year-old. It was all pretty much downhill from there.

These days, I will play Willie Nelson, occasionally. When Willie plays chess, he smokes a joint the size of a large kosher salami. The man is so high he needs a stepladder to scratch his ass. And he moves with lightning-like speed on the chessboard, because he really doesn’t give a damn. And that kind of player will beat you every time – although, I have beaten him a few times.

Willie has also played blind chess with Ray Charles, a lot of people don’t know about that. Interesting man, Willie Nelson: who I consider to be the hillbilly dalai lama. He’s a great American, one of the last living American folk heroes.

What was your most recent music project?

Classic Snatches From Europe is a live CD of 45 shows I did with Little Jewford, the last surviving member of the Texas Jewboys. It was done last year. It’s a comedy CD. It’s pretty funny. It has eight songs on it and a whole bunch of “classic snatches.” It’s out on Sphincter Records out of Houston, which is Little Jewford’s company [www.sphincterrecords.com]. One of his slogans is: “Leaving our competitors behind.” The tour was great. I think we played 12 cities in Germany. We played 12 countries.

How was the reaction in Germany?

Well, it was terrific. Of course, as you know, the Germans are my second favorite people. And my first is: everybody else. Hee-hee-hee. Lord have mercy.

A lot of my books were sold there in German translation and in English, and a guy was telling me he reads both. He said most of the kids he knows do read both, so they can learn English. So, that’s kind of an alarming thought: that these kids are learning English from my books. A guy in Nuremberg came up with a copy of God Bless John Wayne in German. He said, “Will you sign this for my kid?” I asked him how old his kid was, and he said, “One-year-old. As soon as he learns to read, this is the first book I’m going to give him.” So, it’s hard to hate people like that.

Although, I did observe that the German audiences were very, very young. I don’t…well, I do know what that means: it means that these are young people that prefer Tom Waits and the Green Party and James Dean to their own culture and their own history. But, most of the older Germans, I suspect, still tie their shoes with little Nazis.

On the train, going through Austria, in an hour-and-a-half we passed Mozart’s birthplace, Hitler’s birthplace, and Arnold Schwartznegger’s birthplace: The story of mankind.

What concerns you these days?

The Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch in Utopia, Texas is something I’ve been spending a couple years working on.

Why?

Because I really like dogs and stray animals of all kinds. We’ve saved several hundred dogs there. We’ve adopted a whole bunch of them. It’s kind of like a happy orphanage, I would say. It’s great work. Working with abused animals has taught me a lot, and, probably, I’d be a Buddhist now if it weren’t for Richard Gere.

What did you enjoy about writing your latest mystery, The Mile High Club? Does Kinky get to have sex on an airplane?

No, it’s one of my regrets in life. I don’t regret anything I’ve done; like Ernest Hemingway, I regret the things that I didn’t do and haven’t done. And one of them is that I’m not a member of the “Mile High Club.” It’s incredible. I mean, Bill Clinton is, Willie Nelson is, Allen Ginsberg was. There are all kinds of people that are members of the “Mile High Club.” I’ve been too busy saving animals. I’ve become such a Gandhi-like figure that I’m not yet a member of the “Mile High Club.” But, there’s still time, because I’m quite immature.

The book doesn’t have a hell of a lot to do with the “Mile High Club,” as we think of it. A woman who I meet on a plane disappears as the plane is descending into LaGuardia, and doesn’t come back. She goes into the back of the plane and does not return. So I’m left with her handbag and hand luggage, which I take – which starts a whole chain of events. This book actually is different from some of my others in that it actually has a plot. It deals with international terrorism. This one was fun to write. They’re getting pretty painless; I think people are getting more out of my books than I’m putting into them these days.

The books are becoming very successful around the world. That’s nice. They’ve now gone into 17 foreign languages. Money may buy you a fine dog, but only love can make it wag its tail. The only currency I really value is the coin of the spirit. But it is nice to have people naming racehorses after you.

You’ve had a racehorse named after you?

In Australia—which is a good place to be if you’re a racehorse. There’s a Kinky Friedman and there’s a Vandam Street—the street where the Kinkster and the Village Irregulars hang out in New York, where the loft is situated in the mystery novels.

Do any of your real-life friends – like the slovenly Ratso or the paramilitaryesque private investigator Rambam – ever get annoyed at their depictions in your mysteries?

What friends? I think friendship is overvalued, I really do.

No! They really haven’t. I think until it gets into the movies or television, I don’t think that problem is going to arise. Most of them are flattered to be in fiction.

How did it feel to have your songwriting paid homage to on the Pearls in the Snow CD?

There’s some great cuts on there, I think mostly because people did it pretty quickly and pretty cheaply, you know? And they knew they had to get it right. I mean Willie Nelson was great, Dwight Yoakam and Tom Waits. There’s some very good work on Pearls in the Snow.

I didn’t have a hell of a lot to do with that. I stayed the hell away. The last thing anybody in a studio wants is a songwriter working about. I’m well aware of that. But it’s nice to have a tribute album out to yourself before you’re bugled to Jesus. Most people have to be bugled to Jesus, first.

Do you think the tribute album has brought you some respect in Nashville?

Probably not. But if you want respect, that’s not the place to look toward. I mean, they didn’t respect Shel Silverstein, they didn’t respect Johnny Cash, and they didn’t even respect Hank Williams. And they certainly didn’t respect Willie Nelson. And, you know, the title of Roger Miller’s album when he left Nashville was Roger and Out. So, I don’t feel too bad about that.

But, I’ve been convinced that the mainstream, the Space Takers—the Stephen Kings of the world, the John Grishams, the Garth Brooks—do not intertwine their life and their work. They give you very little of their soul. And, so, they don’t affect the future. They become hula-hoops waiting to happen. And then you see people like Allen Ginsberg or someone like Hank Williams or Ernest Hemingway or Townes Van Zandt or Gram Parsons who did passionately interweave their life and their work. The day will come when more people listen to Tom Waits than are listening to Garth Brooks. And more people read Charles Bukowski than read John Grisham. I believe that will happen. But if it doesn’t happen, there’s no doubt that the Space Takers are not the people who perpetuate the future and that inspire us. We’re inspired by the people who died in paupers’ graves: the Mozarts, the Van Goghs and the Oscar Wildes. I mean, those are the people that reach to us across an ocean and across a century.

A few of your songs are about paupers. I was wondering if you based any of those on real people?

“Nashville Casualty and Life” was, I suppose, not based on, but inspired by De Ford Bailey, the first black to ever be on the Grand Ole Opry, the harmonica player. He’s also the last black to ever be on the Grand Ole Opry. And when he died, only one member of the Grand Ole Opry attended his funeral: Bill Monroe, who was, also, the only Democrat in the bunch. It should be known that when Hank Williams came a week before he died and visited Nashville, he drove around behind the theater in his Cadillac. Hank was flying on about 11 different kinds of herbs and spices. But Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff and all those people, when word came that Hank was down there, said, “Oh, don’t let him up here, we don’t want to see him!” Only Bill Monroe went down and got in the car with Hank and talked to him. And Hank said, “You’re my only friend on the Grand Ole Opry, Bill. My last friend in Nashville.” Bill Monroe: great American. Of course, Hank was a great American.

How would you describe your politics?

Well, you know, I ran for Justice of the Peace in 1986 in the nearby town of Kerrville, Texas. At the time, I just wanted to do something on a local level. I was kind of burned out on the entertainment business.

My fellow “Kerrverts” returned me to the private sector.

My campaign slogan was, “If you elect me the first Jewish Justice of the Peace, I’ll reduce the speed limit to 54.95.” Anyway, I’m not bitter. Politics’ loss was literature’s gain.

I’ve read that President Clinton has enjoyed your books.

Clinton and I have been pen pals. Bill and I have written letters back and forth. A guy came up to me with a book in Austin five or six years ago and said sign one for the President. So I signed “Yours in Christ” or “See you in hell” or maybe “Fuck ‘em and feed ‘em fruit loops,” because I didn’t think it was going to go to the President. But two weeks later I got a letter from the White House. He wrote a nice letter and at the end he put, “I have now read all your books. More please. I really need the laughs.” So, I wrote him back and he wrote me back, and I wrote him back and he wrote me back, and this went on for a couple of years.

Then, he invited me to the White House about three years ago: that big dinner party for Neil Simon and Robert Redford, people like that. There were a couple hundred places for dinner that night at these twelve big tables. I couldn’t find my nameplate. Finally, I found it – and right next to me was the President. And on the other side he put Sherry Lansing, who was the President of Paramount Pictures at the time. And she told me, “You know the President is telling me that your books would make excellent movies.” Which is very nice of Bill: I think he did try to broker a movie deal for me. But she asked me, Who do I see playing Kinky? And I told her, “I see Lionel Richie.” Negations broke down from there. Things may happen with that, we’ll see.

Do you think you’ll ever be a mainstream, commercial success?

I, almost, think too much success in your own lifetime is a bad thing. I think you’ve got to guard against that. ‘Cause it’s the kiss of death for immortality. Also, you don’t want to be too happy if you can avoid it. A Happy American never creates anything Great; a Happy American takes something Great and makes it Good. So I fight happiness and success. Those are the enemies. I fight them at every turn.

I’m about through with these novels, though. I’ve written fifteen now and I feel like Conan Doyle. The characters are starting to get up my sleeve rather severely, even though they’re real people, including myself. So, I think the next book will be something different.

You’ve talked about writing something other than a mystery for a while, right?

Yeah, but this is it. The Mile High Club is out in September. Then Stepping on a Rainbow, which is a Hawaiian adventure. That’s also a Kinky mystery. That’s finished. And the next one is finished: Meanwhile Back at the Ranch, which I think may be my best – and last, hopefully. That’s number fifteen.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch features a search for a missing autistic child who only says the word “shnay,” which means “two” in Hebrew and “snow” in German. He’s missing in New York. And there’s a three-legged cat missing from the Rescue Ranch in Texas. These are the two threads of this novel. And after I’m searching for both of these strays, I begin to realize that they may be in communication with each other in some way.

Basically, I try to give these novels some flavor and some humor and a little insight into the human condition, if possible. I don’t take it too seriously here. Nor am I taken too seriously by the Americans; I’m taken more seriously by other people in the world who view my work, possibly, as unconscious commentary on America.

I like mysteries because they offer resolution. They kind of tie up cosmically at the end, and life itself never does that.

Do you have any Christmas or Hanukkah greetings for the readership?

In the book Spanking Watson, I devoted Chapter 15 to Jesus Christ, who I think was the first of a long line of Jewish troublemakers in the world. Today, Jesus is used by Christians, mostly, just to win football games, start wars, and things like that. And he only speaks to people in mental hospitals – and we never believe them. We don’t think he’s really spoken to them. But that’s what he’s chosen to do, that’s what I believe.

As far as the Jewish people are concerned, may all your wishes be little gefilte fishes. I wish them well.

I think I point out in Spanking Watson the difference between a circumcision and a crucifixion. In a circumcision, you cut the tip of the penis off. And in a crucifixion, you throw the whole Jew away.

I’m, as you might have guessed, a Charismatic Atheist. If I could take a fucking bulldozer and run over every religious relic, mosque, temple and church in the world, I’d do it. And then there would be peace on earth. If I could run over the Pope and Castro and O.J. Simpson – and [Chile’s] General Pinochet, while I was at – I would do it.

In fact, I’m thinking of driving out to L.A. and shooting O.J. Simpson and raping Steven Spielberg. But, things haven’t gotten that bad, yet. If they do, that’s my plan.

That’s not something you want in the interview is it?

Sure. Definitely. I think it’s a very integral part of the interview. These I think are the devils we have to deal with in life. More evidence that God isn’t watching every sparrow, you know? There just is no reason for the Pope and Castro and Pinochet to still be alive.

But, I’m not a fan of Sinead O’Connor, either.

So, I just continue a healthy, negative attitude. I basically hate everyone and everything – and it’s all working out pretty well for me.

(For more Kinky Friedman info, surf: www.kinkyfriedman.com)

[Originally appeared in Gallery magazine, the Holiday 2000 issue.]