Other Work and References in Popular Culture
Friedman appeared in the 2004 documentary film Barbecue: A Texas Love Story by Austin-based director Chris Elley. In the film, narrated by Governor Ann Richards, Kinky exclaims that "Jesus loved Barbecue" and analyzes the speech patterns of Texans versus New Yorkers. Raw footage from Friedman's interview appears in the 2005 DVD release of the film. He has appeared in other movies as well including Loose Shoes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
Friedman's persona as a politically incorrect raconteur has been likened to that of movie critic and commentator John Irving Bloom, better known in print as Joe Bob Briggs, with whom he appeared in the B movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
Friedman prefers to smoke Montecristo No. 2 Cigars, the same brand once smoked by Fidel Castro. However, he also smokes Bolivars, noting that "Simón Bolívar is the only person in history to be exiled from a country named after him." Friedman now makes eponymous cigars under the name Kinky Friedman Cigars.
Friedman is given brief praise in Joseph Heller's 1976 novel, Good as Gold, in which a governor (meant to satirize Lyndon B. Johnson), tells the main character, Bruce Gold: "Gold, I like you. You remind me a lot of this famous country singer from Texas I'm crazy about, a fellow calls himself Kinky Friedman, the Original Texas Jewboy. Kinky's smarter, but I like you more."
Friedman is friends with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and he has visited both at the White House. He wrote about his friendships with them in his November 2001 column ("Hail to the Kinkster") for Texas Monthly.
The play Becoming Kinky: The World According to Kinky Friedman, directed by Ted Swindley (Always...Patsy Cline), starring Jesse Dayton, Little Jewford, Alan Lee and Andross Bautsch, premiered at McGonigel's Mucky Duck in Houston, Texas on March 28, 2011.
Read more about this topic: Kinky Friedman
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, work, popular and/or culture:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“How did you get in the Navy? How did you get on our side? Ah, you ignorant, arrogant, ambitiouskeeping sixty two men in prison cause you got a palm tree for the work they did. I dont know which I hate worse, you or that malignant growth that stands outside your door. How did you ever get command of a ship? I realize in wartime they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel. But whered they ever scrape you up?”
—Frank S. Nugent (19081965)
“If our entertainment culture seems debased and unsatisfying, the hope is that our children will create something of greater worth. But it is as if we expect them to create out of nothing, like God, for the encouragement of creativity is in the popular mind, opposed to instruction. There is little sense that creativity must grow out of tradition, even when it is critical of that tradition, and children are scarcely being given the materials on which their creativity could work”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Unthinking people will often try to teach you how to do the things which you can do better than you can be taught to do them. If you are sure of all this, you can start to add to your value as a mother by learning the things that can be taught, for the best of our civilization and culture offers much that is of value, if you can take it without loss of what comes to you naturally.”
—D.W. Winnicott (20th century)