Making a Scene is Sad to Report – Kinky Friedman Passes at Age 79

Kinky Friedman, the singular songwriter, sharp satirist, prolific novelist, gubernatorial candidate, and cigar-chewing dog rescuer, has died. He was seventy-nine. “Kinky has left the building,” longtime friend Cleve Hattersley posted on social media. “We knew it was imminent when we stopped at the ranch to play for him ten days ago. We could see he was miserable, but we could also see the guy we’ve known as a best pal for half a century was still there appreciating our schtick and shedding a tear over our rendition of his song ‘Marilyn and Joe.’” “Adios, Kinky Friedman,” Texas-based author Joe Nick Patoski posted. “You lit up the world while managing to drop insults and make us laugh.”

Friedman’s humor was notorious. “(Being) funny will always cost you,” he said in a characteristically animated interview for the book The Messenger: The Songwriting Legacy of Ray Wylie Hubbard (TAMU Press, 2016). “As Billy Joe Shaver would say, Ray Wylie Hubbard and I are both serious souls who nobody takes seriously. (Expletive) ’em and feed ’em Froot Loops. There are some who do take us seriously, but they’re probably living at the Shalom Retirement Village right now or the Bandera Home for the Bewildered. Are you getting all this? It’s pure genius. What I’m saying is incredible. I didn’t realize I was this spiritual.”

The singer-songwriter and author released a dozen and a half albums over the past fifty years – from his debut Sold American (1973) and the provocatively titled They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore (2005) through The Loneliest Man I Ever Met (2015) and a forthcoming collection (2024) – and wrote more than two dozen books from his early mysteries Greenwich Killing Time (1986) and A Case of Lone Star (1987) through his last non-fiction books You Can Lead a Politician to Water, But You Can’t Make Him Think: Ten Commandments for Texas Politics (2007) and What Would Kinky Do? How to Unscrew a Screwed Up World (2008).

Several artists saluted Friedman on the tribute album Pearls in the Snow: The Songs of Kinky Friedman twenty-five years ago including Tom Waits (“Highway Cafe”), Willie Nelson (“Ride ’Em Jewboy”), Guy Clark (“Wild Man from Borneo,” also covered by James McMurtry), Lyle Lovett (“Sold American”), Dwight Yoakam (“Rapid City, South Dakota”), Delbert McClinton (“Autograph”), Marty Stuart (“Lady Yesterday”) and Tompall Glaser (“Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed”).

Friedman, a former candidate for governor of Texas and justice of the peace in Kerrville, Texas, mapped out his wishes for the afterlife in an interview with the Toronto Star: “I got my last will and testament worked,” he said. “When I die I’m going to be cremated and the ashes are to be thrown in (former Texas governor) Rick Perry’s hair.” The longtime animal lover shared a more heartfelt wish in the epilogue to his book Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola (1993) about his cat Cuddles being put down: “Dogs have a depth of loyalty that we seem unworthy of, but the love of a cat is a blessing, a privilege in this world. They say when you die and go to heaven all the dogs and cats you’ve ever had in your life come running to meet you. Until that day, rest in peace, Cuddles.”

“Kinky always obliged me by playing the South by Southwest parties Conqueroo co-sponsored: Guitartown/Conqueroo and Rebels & Renegades with Jenni Finlay Promotions,” Friedman’s former publicist Cary Baker said. “God broke the mold once he made Kinky: singer, songwriter, author, ill-fated politician, dog rescuer, underprivileged children’s camp sponsor, craft vodka magnate, homo erectus, Chicagoan, Philadelphian, Texas Jewboy…Kinky wore many hats and lived on his own terms every step of the way.”

Jenni Findlay

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