Come in & Relax

Enjoy the food of elegant
dining at family oriented prkes
How about a
Birthday Skating Party?

$ 11Pr child
Includes: Open Skating
• Skate rental
• Pizza & Beverage
mini:mum 10 children

Tivary Ikani Ittate-

Classes offered:
Tuesdays 10:00 — 10:50 am
Wednesday 5:00 -- 5:50 pm
Saturdays 1:00 — 1:50 pm
Sundays 2:00 — 2:50 pm

Cost: $99.00 (8 week session)
Professional instructors provide quality
instruction for recreational, hockey and fig-
ure skaters of all ages.

-

*Schedule is subject to change*
due to Special Events and Tournaments

5600 Drake Rd. just south of INalnut Lake Rd.
for more information
(248) 788-0966

10 VV. 14 Mile Road
In Simsbury Plaza
Just East of Farmington Road ,
West Bloomfield

12481 538.i

"7-4ZZ!' ■

,4 -46

"9

---

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Hops"

- Where Businesdlleets Peasure

Available, for Private Dining on
Sundays

-by appointment only-

. • Bar/Bat Mitzvalis

1/4

2002

54

• Weddings/Anniversaries
• Private Parties up to 400. Guests
245 S. Eton, Birmingham • (248) O4 7- 7774

ww.bigrockchophouse.corn

Shooting From
The Lip

Songwriter-turned-author speaks his mind.

Ell:

ARTHUR SALM
Copley News Service

Israeli writer Etgar Keret; Ki
expressed both admirationfor the
work and consternation at how
Keret made it look so easy. Then
he allowed as how he was tired of
writing the Kinky mysteries. He
said he wanted to kill off the main
character.
But — aren't the books written
in the first person, and isn't he the
main character?
Kinky nodded glumly. "That's
the trick," he said.

e's hard to miss, which is
probably the point.
Richard "Kinky" Friedman,
56, is dressed in a black
shirt, black vest and black boots, topped
off with a black cowboy hat adorned
with an uncharacteristically discreet off-
white feather. A prodigious stogie, whose
job description includes being waved
about, serially guillotined and puffed
with ferocity, serves as an accent mark.
Kinky — referring to him as
A Liquid Lunch
"Friedman" just sounds wrong —
At a restaurant-bar selected for its jovial-
became known, cherished and, in some
ly seedy atmosphere and proud offering
humor-impaired circles, reviled in the
of "Texas burgers," Kinky announced
early 1970s for his band Kinky
that he had become a vegetarian, and
Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. His
ordered only beer. A Guinness: no
infamous output includes "They Ain't
down-home, All-American affectation
Makin' Jews Like Jesus Any More" and
from the Kinkster, as he refers to himself
"Get Your Biscuits in the Oven (and
if you give him an eighth of a chance.
Your Buns in the Bed)." Unlike his anti-
Waiting for the beer to arrive, he
Nashville "outlaw" compadres Willie
picked up the thread of his literary dis-
Nelson and Waylon Jennings, however,
course:
Kinky never made it commercially.
"I went to a Barnes & Noble [book-
On the music scene, that is. He has
store] recently — it was a drive-by sign-
just published his 15th book, Kinky
ing, I wasn't officially supposed to be
Friedmans Guide to Texas Etiquette, after
- there. They had 25 of my books, which
having written a passel of well-received,
I signed in the cafe. I looked around at
hilarious mysteries.
The narrator-hero bears a resemblance the famous literary figures on the-wall:
writers like Rudyard Kipling, George
to the author, inasmuch as the narrator-
Elliot, George Bernard Shaw. I asked the
hero is a former country singer named
manager how many of those people, in
Kinky Friedman, who lives with his
terms of quantity, had as many books in
bemused, often disdainful cat in a
the store as Kinky Friedman did. He
Greenwich Village apartment located
said 'Maybe Hemingway would give you
under a lesbian dance studio. Kinky the
a run for your money. Everybody else
Fictional solves mysteries involving
you've got beat.'
somewhat shady friends who bear a
"I said, 'Well, that's [bleepin'] pathet-
resemblance to, not to mention the
ic.'
It confirms my opinion that every
same names as, friends of Kinky the
culture gets what it deserves, and I guess
Author.
we deserve Dr. Laura and Rush
A case in point — Kinky did research
[Limbaugh]."
for Roadkill, in which Willie Nelson is a
In the early 1980s, Kinky was looking
central character, by spending several
to get past his involvement with, as he
months on the road with Willie & Co.
calls it, "Peruvian marching powder."
Kinky, whose most recent contribu-
The
Jewboys had long since disbanded.
tion to the mystery genre was Steppin' on
a Rainbow, agreed to meet for lunch and He decided to try writing a book.
"I was desperate," he growled. "I was
talk about whatever. He climbed into
living in Greenwich Village with a cat,
the front passenger seat, fired up a
looking for a lifestyle that didn't require
brand-new cigar and spoke what was on
my presence." .
his mind. Namely, literature. He'd been
Why a mystery?
reading a short-story collection by the