JPG: At one time I liked John Edwards…
KF: A lot of people I know did…
JPG: …because he was the candidate that brought about disparity and talked about the poor in this country.
KF: …and he had the ability to inspire. That’s really a tragedy because he really does. If you walked into a rally of his, you’d come away saying, ‘Wow.’ It’s true, and it’s just a shame that the guy is a fraud.
They are all bullshit. One term in office and one term in prison. Two term limit.
JPG: (laughs)
KF: I’m telling you, people laugh but you thought it was a joke when I was talking about how bad politicians…these guys are all former hall monitors. The reason they love smoking bans so much is because they polled this and they see that most people don’t like smoking. So, they do a very un-American thing. They have it that nobody can smoke in anyplace whereas they should have a thing where you could have Kinky’s Bar in Cleveland, smoking allowed. Everybody who works there or comes there knows there’s going to be smoking. You could put your own restaurant up there and, ‘no smoking’ and then they know they could go there. That’s the way it ought to be done. But instead, we’ve got this shit in Texas, which I blame my friend, Lance Armstrong, for starting, smoking bans in Texas. And, of course, they succeeded wildly. So, we now have like a communist watched state where people report me for even having a cigar. It’s an oral fixation. It may not be lit, but they still report me. And Lance says, ‘We’re doing it for your health, Kinky.’ Well, is he really? I mean, maybe he is, but the politicians aren’t. And I always like to point out the countries of Spain and Portugal, Israel and Japan and Greece and Italy and add France to that, seven. Seven countries. And if you check those countries, you’ll see that all of them have a higher smoking per capita than the United States, much higher in fact. And all of them have a longer life expectancy than the United States. So, all we conclude is that speaking English is killing us.
It’s a much higher calling being a musician than a politician.
JPG: As a musician as well as an author, is it easier to deal with the book world than the music world?
KF: Well, the book world has gotten really interesting now with the internet. I have to give this to the internet, despite my own misgivings. We’re doing a David and Goliath kind of thing now where we’re taking the old Kinky books and doing audio books of all of them and ebooks. They’re already, we’re putting them up as we finish them. There’s already a dozen of ‘em or so of them available on KinkyFriedman.com. And that’ll tell you where you can go to Amazon or Apple or Barnes & Noble Download a book or download an audio book read by me. And these are taking off. And it’s kind of David and Goliath deal. Think about it. We’re not using big publishing houses. We’re avoiding the chain book stores pretty much. Power agents and big time publishers, none of them are involved. It’s amazing. Seems to be working because a lot young people are rediscovering the Kinkster and a lot of older people had Kinky books and cats pissed on ‘em over the years. Over the years cats piss on everything. That’s my theory.
JPG: In that same vein, your last studio album was in 2005, do you see yourself going that same route with a new recording where its released independently on your website?
KF: Well, I don’t know. I’m in a Woody Guthrie mood right now where I like to do the songs live. The good thing about my shows, as old as these songs are, which will be older than many of the people in the audience, they’re not nostalgic.
JPG: That’s kind of fortunate and unfortunate if you know what I mean. (The phone line goes dead. A few minutes technology cooperates when I get Kinky back on the line and the conversation continues.) What happened there?
KF: I thought you went into a diabetic coma. (Returning to the subject at hand) I would just say that Barry Manilow is an example of a guy who’s made more money than God and sings songs that make us feel good for a short period of time. Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson or Willie [Nelson] or Bob [Dylan] are people who tend to write songs that make you think, and they might stay with you a lifetime and that’s the kind of songs that I like to write and sing.
JPG: And they do. Before we got cut off, I was saying that it’s fortunate and unfortunate that your songs still have resonance today, that after all these years we still haven’t moved forward.
KF: For instance, I’m doing a tour of Australia after this with Van Dyke Parks. And something like “Sold American” over there has a real different meaning than it did when I wrote it. It has a lot more meaning to people outside the states. And, of course, people outside Texas, I won the race for governor in every place but Texas. So, they tend to get it.
You can’t be a humorist or they call you a comedian and you can’t make it in politics unless you’re that fucker from Minnesota. Al Franken, who was corrupt before he even got started but he also had a lot of money. When you’re dealing with issues like the death penalty…See, that’s a big thing. I could have gotten rid of the death penalty in Texas. A governor could do that if he has any leadership skills or inclinations ‘cause we’re whacking someone every couple of weeks here and getting it wrong on a fairly good basis ‘cause the system is broken. We’ve got a guy that’s been in death row for 23 years and people try to protect the system and not him. We’re loaded with Christians in Texas and I talked to a Christian and I always tell him, ‘I’m sorry you’ve got to hear this from a Jew, but remember folks that’s who you heard it from the first time.’ You’ve got to define what being a Christian means. Is it holding hands around a chicken fried steak and singing a hymn. What is it? It’s more than that.
JPG: I could go into my long diatribe in regards to being pro-life and what that means in regards to the death penalty or poor welfare mothers or adoption or orphanages…
KF: That’s absolutely right. And we ought to be teaching kids to think for themselves and not how to pass a test. We ought to…I think I was the first guy that supported gay marriage in a campaign saying they have every right to be just as miserable as the rest of us.
JPG: (laughs) Imagine the economic boom right there with all the money raised for licenses and receptions and presents. That could help the states budgets right there.
KF: Absolutely. But you know what happens is, my little joke about pedophiles would kill me. ‘Oh, Kinky, you’re supporting pedophiles. That’s nothing to joke about.’
No Comments comments associated with this post