accidentally got introduced to Kinky Friedman while shopping in a bookstore in Austin, Texas early's, Just picked up one of the middle books mainly because the cover had a photo of a black cat and she looked like she was in control, Go forward some twenty years later and I'm still a fan and now I've decided to start reading Kinky's books in order, So now, I'm at number, All of his mysteries are hilarious and quite often politically incorrect which is why they are so enjoyable,
I found this one to be nostalgic in addition to a being fun read, For me it was like revisiting the club nightlife in's New York but focusing on the activity at the Lone Star music club and the country music scene.
There's lots of information about Hank Williams, his life, lyrics, and his death, Kinky also throws in other information about other musicians such as Bob Dylan and biographer Chet Flippo who actually wrote for the Rolling Stones and penned a biography of Hank Williams Sr.
Kinky's books are sometimes a case of the truth being stranger than fiction, so I discovered that there truly was a Lone Star Cafe in NYC located atth Ave on the corner of Fifth Avenue andth Street and indeed it did have afoot Iguana named "Iggy" on the roof.
Really, believe it or not,
This Cafe hosted many musical acts from Texas like : Greezy Wheels, Asleep at the Wheel, Roy Orbinson, Willie Nelson, Delbert McClinton, Freddy Fender, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Lost Gonzo Band, Hot Tuna and Kinky Friedman.
Wow!
Even more amazing and fun, two of the founders of the Lone Star actually appear in the book: Mort Cooperman who is the cop and Bill Dick who is the owner of Lone Star in the book.
On the way to solving the crime, we get exposed to Kinky's obsessions : Jameson Whiskey, Cuban Cigars, dim sum, Mexican food, sambuca, coffee beans, cats and women, We also get to meet the Village Irregulars a group of rag tag friends who are also Kinky's friends in real life Ratso,
Rambam, McGovern, Brennan, Tom Baker, Chinga Chavez, Winnie Katz, Uptown Judy and Downtown Judy.
In conclusion, Kinky always delivers fun lines, irreverent observations with some philosophical discussions to entertain and amuse the reader, Lot's of laughs and great characters,
Thank you Kinky. I want to be Kinky Friedman when I grow up: drinking all night, sleeping til noon, two girlfriends with the same name, singing country music, solving crimes and not really working much.
Old Kinky is not for everybody, if he was he would be worth a Ratso's ass, This is my second in the series and I'm reading them in order, "A Case of Lone Star" was a bit more of a whodunit, but that still not the point.
The point is the wit, the wisecracks, the oneliners, In the book, Kinky quotes Oscar Wilde who wrote, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the, " Wilde sure wrote it, Kinky sure lived it! Steht als Bestandteil der MitbewohnerBibliothek schon immer bei uns im Regal und gehört zu des Herrn Mitbewohners Geschichte jetzt wollte ich's doch mal wissen.
Nachdem ich die ersten Kapitel lang schwankte, ob ich die übertriebene HardboiledAttitüde der Erzählstimme albern fand oder nicht, erkannte ich, dass die Stimme sie ja selbst albern fand und mochte sie.
Die Krimihandlung im New Yorker CountrymusikMillieu derer selbst ist nicht unbedingt fesselnd, doch es sind die ständigen schrägen Ausreißer aus all den Klischees, die das Buch zur vergnüglichen Lektüre machten seien es die Metaphern, die unerwartet auf jüdische Kultur referenzieren Herr Friedman ist ja vor allem Musiker, mit CountryHits wie "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore", seien es Floskeln, die der Erzähler ganz anders verwendet als gewohnt.
sembra la caricatura di mike spillane, ma in salsa country, anzi, a dire la verità è fatto troppo bene per essere solo una caricatura: le battute funzionano, i personaggi sono totalmente assurdi eppure al tempo stesso credibili a partire dal protagonista, che poi è lo stesso kinky e anche se l'intreccio non è il massimo diciamo che come libro giallo non è esattamente roba da "giallo mondadori" si viene spinti a divorare il romanzo nel più breve tempo possibile, fosse solo per vedere se spunta qualche altro improbabile locale newyorkese.
e alla fine resta la voglia sia
di recuperare altri libri di kinky friedman, sia di ascoltarsi una bella raccolta di hank williams, I bought this book a long time ago, but it sat with my other hardbacks and unfortunately didn't get read, So many laughoutloud moments. The plot was a little confusing, and how Kinky ever got to the conclusion he did is still beyond me, But as well as the lighthearted look at the's, the namedropping and insights into country music were highly entertaining, Bob Dylan's gift. The cast of oddball characters, A retrolook at country music in New York, It was just the right time to read this book, Own First Edition signed copy The second of the mysteries featuring the foulmouthed Kinky Friedman, ace private eye, It is Thanksgiving at the legendary Lone Star Cafe, a raucus little corner of Texas right in the middle of Manhattan, Larry Barkins is found dead in his dressing room, his head bashed in with his own guitar, A very cleverly written countrywestern murder mystery noir set in NYC, Plenty of Kinky Friedman witticisms throughout, It is pretty easy to figure out who the killer is though, A short, breezy, enjoyable read, CRITIQUE:
Write 'em, Jewboy
I started reading this novel just before the Trump Insurrection the bonfire of Trump's vanity, as if we needed yet another one, and at first it was hard to make much headway, with all the distraction.
But then it seemed that a bit of the Kinkster was just what I needed, He sure knows how to write with pertinence and humour, Maybe he was what we all needed, A writer/musician whose guitar not to mention his books, in the words of Woody Guthrie, kills fascists,
As at the end of the twentieth century he wrote this novel in, Kinky was he's still alive, at the time of writing a true, alternative Jewish Renaissance Man.
He's a country music singer, songwriter, guitarist, comic, journalist, novelist, and, in the guise of his first person narrator, an amateur private detective his friend, Ratso, calls him Sherlock.
Then in the first decade of this century, he made a creditable run for governor of Texas, describing himself as a Texas Jewboy, who would make a kinky governor.
Not all candidates are so frank about their ambitions,
His campaign slogan declared:
"Kinky's, . . for the little fellers, not the Rockefellers, " Online, the slogan is attributed to Senator Paul Wellstone,
Though, while fearing for his life in the novel, he quotes the words of Thomas Paine: "I care not who makes a country's laws, if I can write her songs.
" To which his friend, the journalist McGovern, responds, "You may write the songs, but I write the obituaries, "
Eastern, Country and Western
Most of the action in the novel occurs in New York, rather than Texas or Nashville.
Some crazed fan of Hank Williams has started to kill performers at the Lone Star Cafe, and Kinky is enlisted by the owner to put a halt to the murders, at which point he becomes a target.
He also agrees to perform at the Lone Star Cafe, so he can catch the killer redhanded, or before his hands are reddened with Kinky's blood,
"Anything can happen in New York, Right or wrong, Kinkster You're the perfect guy to make New York City safe for country music, . . Do it for God and country music, "
Substitute Washington DC for New York, and you get an insurrection, Even if, in New York, "I keep looking at these damn people outside the window, . . They look like discarded lines from old Bob Dylan songs, " In comparison, Trump's supporters looked like absconders from a dental convention, or music fans who were too old for John Cougar Mellencamp and too young for the Beach Boys.
Kinky's's New York isn't the cosmopolitan city it claims to be:
"It's almost as hard to get good Mexican food in New York as it is in Mexico.
"
Things are different in Texas, It's the home of rednecks and Proud Boys and sitelinkSXSW,
"Back in Texas it was hunting season, A good time to buy your motherinlaw a fur coat with antlers, "
"I put on my cowboy hat and my hunting vest with the little rows of stitched pockets where some Americans keep their shotgun shells, "
Jake Angeli, AKA QAnon Shaman
Once in a while, you get to storm the Capitol in your fur coat and horns, if you're lucky.
"What great sport to be a hunter, Kill things more beautiful than you, Shoot birds that flew higher than your dreams, Kill many buffalo. Once in a while you clean your gun and accidentally blow your head off, Good. "
Hank Williams Nuts
Almost everybody in the novel is a Hank Williams nut, He's more or less the patron saint of the novel, His real life biographer, Rolling Stone journalist, Chet Flippo, plays a significant role in the novel,
Kinky says of the biography, sitelink "Your Cheatin' Heart":
"The thing that makes it work is that it contains thoughts, incidents, scenes, emotions that only Hank Williams himself could have known.
"
It's a line he's borrowed from a review somewhere, He uses it twice in the novel,
The Lone Star Cafe, corner of Fifth Avenue andth Street, New York City, complete withfoot roof iguana by Bob "DaddyO" Wade Under the top banner is a sign saying, "Too Much Ain't Enough"
Source: sitelink blogspot. com/
For more pics and history, see also: sitelink blogspot. com/
Economy ofWords
Kinky also admires the fact that Chet Flippo uses no "words", Kinky's writing is the same, He's a man of few words, most of them short, The longest is probably "pertinent",
When it comes to women, "I employed an economy of words, Women go for the strong, silent type, Except in rare cases where they prefer the highly verbal, indecisive type, I could be either. Sometimes, in extreme situations I would rapidly alternate the two personas in case the woman liked a guy who was confused about his identity, "
Kinky has two girlfriends, Uptown Judy and Downtown Judy one for each persona, neither of whom is aware of the other's existence, and who narrowly miss each other during visiting hours.
Kinky Obsessions
Hank Williams isn't the only subject of obsession in the novel, Kinky is obsessed with shots of Jameson Irish Whiskey, Bass ale chasers, sambuca, coffee beans, cigars purchased from Village Cigars, and Nudie Suits "I put on my Nudie's of Hollywood Jesus coat that Bob Dylan had given me".
His friend, Ratso, has ten thousand books relating to Jesus, Bob Dylan and Hitler, You wonder whether he was a colleague of Murray Jay Siskind from Don DeLillo's sitelink "White Noise", There's a baldheaded, coke dealing lawyer named Murray Fiskind in Kinky's novel, "Not that all lawyers are crooks, " I'd like to see somebody prove that beyond reasonable doubt,
If you're wondering what will help you get through until the end of the inauguration and the next hundred days, you might enjoy some of the legendary mysterious loud mouth honkytonk rock singer cowboy that is Kinky Friedman.
But be prepared to come out the other side with some new obsessions besides Donald Trump, QAnon, Twitter and the second amendment, If nothing else, do it for God and country music,
Source: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
"I wanted Bernie to win thepresidential election, because that would have been the first time in history that a Jewish family moved into a house that a black family moved out of.
"
Source: sitelink net/blog
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