The Kinkster has done many things since 1974: a member of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, author of mystery books, seller of his own lines of cigars, coffee and tequila ("not your father's tequila, your grandfather's gardener's tequila"), and a famous 2005 run at the governorship of Texas ("where I carried every state 'cept Texas"). Interesting guy. So, earlier this year, when I saw that Cafe Nine was hosting The Governor of the Heart of Texas, I put it on my list of concerts to catch.
My last trip to The Musician's Living Room was a few months ago with the Pool Hall Studs for the Dex Romweber Duo- great show, though we had to wait through a bunch of other acts before Dex, which made for a mighty late night. Oh, what the hell, it's an 8 o'clock start, so I can do this. A text to the PHS yields silence, so I'm on my own. I find a parking spot on State Street, just past the corner of State/Crown. I amble over to Cafe Nine's side (Crown Street) entrance, where I'm greeted by the familiar somber, well-pierced young girl who takes my $25 cover and stamps my hand. I enter. Very crowded. Pretty old crowd. Ouch. No seats. The dressed-in-black, cigar-in-mouth Friedman is up near the stage, signing stuff, posing for pictures. I grab a Bud (hmmmm, I could have gone Lone Star, definitely not a Sam Summer tonight) and squeeze into a spot to the front of the bar and wait. Promptly at eight, a likeable young man (Brian Mulder, I think) does a half-hour set of low-key, guitar strummin', "I left for Elay, should have thought about it one more day" kind of stuff. A short break. I check my messages, send some texts, observe Jack Kerouac up on the wall- hey, I'm a busy guy, not just standing around with nothing to do!
Finally, it is show time. The Governor works his way from the back of the bar through the dense crowd to the small stage at the front left of the room. Loud applause. "Anyone here see Willie Nelson last night?" Yes, a few. "You all heard about his drug bust last year on his tour bus. I later saw him on tv in handcuffs - signing autograph for the police! That's why I like to call him The Hillbilly Dali Lama." A song: Waitress, oh waitress, please sit on my face; eatin' ain't cheatin'..... Crowd loves The Governor! A pitch for his Man in Black tequila (website: This tequila is a tribute to men like Paladin, Zorro and Johnny Cash who wore the dark attire that cloaked them in mystery...he may have been a hero or a scoundrel, but all who encountered him knew that he was a force to be dealt with. He was The Man in Black.) More songs, some old, but one touching Irish ballad of an 18-year old lad dying for Ireland's freedom. Powerful stuff.
He calls up a young lass he claims to have discovered recently at a festival they were both performing in, Amy Love, for three songs. Two standards, one original. Very good voice, stage presence AND the best damn whistler I have ever heard! Loud applause. Kinky returns with a few more songs, stories. He reads a touching passage about his deceased father, a war hero/college professor/humanitarian, from his book-in-progress- Heroes of a Texas Childhood. You could hear a pin drop. I'm thinking, here's a grizzled old bastard, playing unaccompanied, sweating up a storm, voice past its prime, yet wonderfully, completely entertaining.
He finishes with, you guessed it. The whole crowd yelling out the chorus as Kinky closes it out. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, they ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore! They ain't made many like The Kinkster neither. Totally satisfying show. Glad I got my ass down here. (Tonight Kinky Friedman's Bi-Polar Tour is in Collinsville at Bridge Street Live)
