Beside the Seaside

By Birgitta | September 27, 2006 8:42 AM

DO not forget to see HALMSTADS new library by the river.
Thanks for your help.

By Birgitta | September 27, 2006 5:47 PM

Mike, I am sorry but I must add this.
I want to see you on a photo outside HALMSTADS new library and all your readers to look for it on the web.

By John B | September 28, 2006 1:04 AM

Wally sounds a laugh.

'Good luck for the trip, Mike.'

'After the news and a bit of Shakatak let's have your best recipes for Eggs Benedict.'

By Steve | September 28, 2006 9:27 AM

Essential reading from the outside world:

The Times September 28, 2006
Kinky Friedman: A new twist for Texas
Not many political candidates have written openly about their cocaine use. Or taken to the campaign trail wearing a cowboy hat and chomping on a Montecristo. Or penned lyrics such as these, satirising the women’s liberation movement: “Get your biscuits in the oven and your buns in the bed.”

Yet Kinky Friedman — former country singer, mystery novelist and perpetual antagoniser of the PC movement — is second in the polls to become the next Governor of Texas, behind the Republican candidate Rick Perry. If Friedman leapfrogs Perry, he will make gubernatorial history in the Lone Star state. His victory will be the first for an independent candidate since Sam Houston’s of 1859, and the first for a Jew.

His manifesto certainly makes for an original read. He has pledged a recount if he wins, and has allegedly promised the job of running women’s prisons to his best friends.

He supports gay marriage because “I believe they have the right to be just as miserable as the rest of us”. He does not oppose the death penalty but is “damn sure anti-the wrong guy getting executed”. He is packing out auditoriums; supporters, lured by the slogan “Why the Hell not?”, are bade farewell with the message: “May the God of your choice bless you.”

But he has come under fire for an unchecked tongue. He once told an interviewer that sex offenders should be thrown in prison and made to “listen to a negro talking to himself”. He referred to victims of Hurricane Katrina as “crackheads and thugs”. One black group said the comments were more appropriate for someone running for “grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan”. Friedman’s response was that negro is a “charming word”.

Richard Friedman was born in 1944 in Chicago, and his family moved to Texas a year later. His parents were educators, and set up a summer camp for children near Austin, where Friedman still lives with his four dogs. He formed a band while studying psychology at the University of Texas, where he acquired his nickname, but really struck it big in 1973 with Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, a name his father despised.

Among their hits were They Ain’t Making Jews like Jesus Anymore, and Asshole from El Paso. Friedman hung out with the likes of Willie Nelson and Billy Joel, and toured with Bob Dylan in 1976.

His musical career stalled in the Eighties but he turned to writing Raymond Chandler-style mysteries, set in New York. A magazine column followed; he relinquished it last year to campaign. Friedman has never married.