Singer-novelist
Kinky Friedman
will get to you if
you take him too
seriously.
Gadt 1 Y
SUZANNE CHESSLER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
C
ountry singer
turned mys-
tery writer
Kinky Fried-
man puffs
away on im-
ported cigars
and seems perfectly comfort-
able with the clouds of smoke
that surround him.
The entertainer from
Texas kept up his long-time
habit when he appeared in
November at the 42nd annu-
al Jewish book Fair held at
the Maple-Drake Jewish
Community Center. His vis-
it was part of a promotional
tour for his just-published
Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola.
Mr. Friedman has been
taking that book to similar
events around the country
with stops in Houston,
Austin, Long Island and
Sarasota. He liked being in
the Detroit area, where he
has no relatives or close
friends to divert time from
marketing efforts.
"I smoke mainly to irritate
others, and I like to exhale
around people jogging past
me, children and green
plants," said the sardonic
writer, 49, whose local ap-
pearance included some
singing and guitar strum-
ming before he got caught up
with selling autographed
copies of his sixth novel.
"This country has mis-
placed its anxieties," he con-
tended. "We've got cities like
Los Angeles that are drown-
ing in chemical sprays, and
people are worrying about
some guy in a cowboy hat
smoking a cigar in a restau-
rant."
Mr. Friedman's strong at-
titude toward smoking falls
right in line with his style in
general, which he hopes the
public will support through
three projects carrying him
into 1994 — another new
book Ten Pretty Girls, a CD
"Old Testaments and New
Revelations" that features his
songs from live performances,
and a projected movie adap-
tation of an earlier mystery,
A Case of Lone Star.
"I like to keep people alert
and awake," he said about
criticism encountered after
his '70s band, Kinky Fried-
man and the Texas Jewboys,
introduced songs that met
with protests from ethnic and
special interest groups.
"I'm sort of a spiritual gad-
fly, and I like things to be dif-
ferent. I think it's important
for people to not go with the
Kinky had his
audience g oing
in Detro it
flow all the time."
Two examples of
the songs at issue are
"They Ain't Makin'
Jews Like Jesus Any-
more" and "The Bal-
lad of Charles Whitman," the
latter based on a fatal sniper
incident at the University of
Texas (U-T).
Mr. Friedman likes to com-
pare himself to Jesus, ex-
plaining that both are
Jewish, never held a job,
stayed single and traveled
around the country irritating
people. He claims that indi-
viduals who can't appreciate
what he labels satire really
lack a sense of humor.
Although his personal in-
terests have taken him in di-
verse directions, Mr.
Friedman stays close to the
flow of family interests. Cur-
rently living in the family
home located on 400 acres in
Kerrville, Texas, he contin-
ues to devote time to the fam-
ily's Jewish summer
camp, Echo Hill
Ranch.
Started 42 years
ago by his father, Tom
Friedman, a former U-
T psychology professor, the
camp also is administered by
his younger sister, Marcie.
The entertainer was a
camper between the ages of 7
and 14, a counselor after that
and now an occasional camp-
fire song leader. When he is
available, he continues to dri-
ve the camp laundry to a
cleaners in a nearby town.
Mr. Friedman, who was a
liberal arts student at the
schools where his father
taught and where a friend
changed his name from
Richard to Kinky, joined the
Peace Corps after graduation.
He worked in Borneo and
never forgot the English
words most recognized by the
people he met. They became
the title of his current book,
Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola.
After deciding to form his
band, which performed be-
tween 1973 and 1976, he
chose its name as a takeoff on
one used by a popular group
in his home state, Bob Willis
and the Texas Playboys.
"The lyrics were of social
commentary nature and were
smarter than country lyrics
in general, but they did not
appeal to country audiences,"
he said.
When the group disband-
ed, Mr. Friedman toured with
Bob Dylan and then moved to
New York, performing at the
Lone Star Cafe every Sunday
night.
The incident that gave him
a new career focus involved
his rescuing a woman during
a 1984 robbery attempt at an
automated teller machine.
Mulling it over afterwards,
he decided to write mystery
novels, using himself as the
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