LITTLE ROCK — There are singer-songwriters aplenty out on the road, doing their thing, but the number dwindles when you add “novelist” to the list, and shrinks even more when you tack on “politician.”
That’s when you know Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman is the likely person of interest in the discussion. Friedman, who has visited Juanita’s a time or two to perform, and sell and sign some of his extensive output of books, is returning this week. You could call it a break between political campaigns; he finished fourth in the race for governor of Texas in 2006.
“I’m taking a little vacation from politics,” Friedman muses. “I got 13 percent of the best of Texas, but there were only 26 percent of the voters who came out to vote. From the president to our governor, there’s a real lack of leadership right now.
“The people who get elected, they were the hall monitors back in school. These are not the kind of people who see a problem and want to help.”
Friedman is fairly certain he will be doing a solo tour when he hits town on the second date of his “Springtime for Kinky Tour of 2011,” which opened Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo.
“I think it’ll just be my guitar and a book,” Friedman says. “That will allow me to bring back songs like ‘TheyAin’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore,’ ‘Men’s Room’ and ‘Sold American,’ a song that people are beginning to understand more and more. It really means something to people outside America.
“I’ll be doing a reading from my latest books, What Would Kinky Do? and Heroes of a Texas Childhood, in which I talk about 23 of the heroes of my youth, such as Audie Murphy. It saddens me to think there are people who have never heard of him! Others I wrote about were Barbara Jordan and Molly Ivins. It’s a book Jim Hightower suggested I write, and if I ever do become governor, itwill be mandatory reading. The obstacles and challenges and tragedies - you read the book and just shake your head in wonder at the lives of these folks. And two of them are still alive.”
Friedman, 66, has plenty of irons in the fire besides his road-tested songs and new books. Willie Nelson, a chess-playing pal of Friedman’s, is working on an album of Kinky’s songs, which will be the third tribute CD of Friedman’s music. Then there’s a new play, Becoming Kinky … The World According to Kinky Friedman, written by Ted Swindley, well-known for his play, Always … Patsy Cline, a favorite of central Arkansas theater audiences.
Then there’s a planned project to write a book with Arkansas native Billy Bob Thornton, with Friedman calling it more of Thornton’s “take on the world.”
“He’s one of the few people in Hollywood who does not care about his career, and he believes that art should subvert the culture,” Friedman says.
A former Peace Corps worker in Borneo in the mid-1960s, Friedman lives in the Texas Hill Country, outside Kerrville, where one of his pet projects - so to speak - is the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, in its 13th year as a haven for unwanted dogs and cats.
Of the nearly 30 books he has written, most have been detective novels whose hero is a detective named, yes, Kinky Friedman, but the musician/ author/politician/animal welfare activist thinks he may be through with mysteries.
“Right now, I’m just wandering in the raw poetry of time,” he says. “I guess I’ll have to fly to my shows, but I’d rather arrive in my Yom Kippur Clipper if I had my druthers.”
Kinky Friedman 9 p.m. today, Juanita’s, 13th and Main streets, Little Rock Admission: $25 (501) 372-1228
Weekend, Pages 37 on 04/28/2011