Kinky Friedman explains how Willie Nelson and misery inspired his new album

Never tell author, singer-songwriter and former Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman you’re sorry for being late. Not even if you’re calling him a full day after a scheduled phone interview.

“Don’t apologize! That’s for Catholics and Democrats!” quipped Friedman, whose several dozen books include “Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola” and “Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned: A Novel.”

A longtime friend of Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, San Diego’s Mojo Nixon and former San Diegan Tom Waits, Friedman is near-legendary for being brash and unapologetic.

Just how brash and unapologetic is evident in the titles of some of his memorably skewed country songs from the 1970s.

They include “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore” and “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed” and (Friedman and his former band, The Texas Jewboys, infamously filmed an episode of the TV music series “Austin City Limits” that was deemed too offensive to air and was shelved.)

More examples of his brashness — and his remarkably colorful life — are highlighted in the new book “Everything’s Bigger in Texas: The Life and Times of Kinky Friedman” by Mary Lou Sullivan.

The 332-page biography includes a two-page foreword by Friedman, who writes: “I have no regrets about what I told Mary Lou or what she may have written. Like I say, there’s a fine line between fiction and nonfiction and I believe Jimmy Buffet and I snorted it in 1976.”

It’s a funny line, to be sure. But Friedman had a debilitating cocaine habit before going cold turkey in the 1980s. He subsequently wrote his first book, “Greenwich Killing Time,” published in 1986.

His biggest vice now appears to his omnipresent cigars. He is pictured puffing on one on the cover of “The Life and Times of Kinky Friedman.”

Beneath the photo is a blurb of high praise from Bob Dylan, whose repeated invitations to collaborate on an album were declined by Friedman in the mid-1970s. Dylan’s blurb reads: “I don’t understand music. I understand Lightnin’ Hopkins. I understand Leadbelly, John Lee Hooker, Woody Guthrie, Kinky Friedman.”

Dylan and Friedman appeared three times on the annual Chabad charity fundraising telethons in Los Angeles in the late-1980s and early 1990s. On the 1991 edition, they performed Friedman’s understated ballad, “Sold American,” which includes such poignant lines as: And everything’s been sold American / The lonely night is mourning for the death it never dies / Everyone’s been sold American / Don’t let me catch you laughing when the jukebox cries.

‘It’s not the pot of gold that matters’

Kinky Friedman is shown with longtime pal Jimmy Buffett during Friedman’s 2006 campaign to become governor of Texas.

(Photo by Harry Cabluck/AP )

Sullivan’s fond but unflinching biography of Friedman is selling well. This prompts a wry observation from the Chicago-born, Texas-raised maverick, who performs a solo concert Wednesday at the Belly Up in Solana Beach.

“It would be mildly ironic if this biography rakes in the money — and ‘The Kinkster’ doesn’t make a dime!” he said, referring to his own nickname, before offering a qualification. “It’s not the pot of gold that matters, it’s the rainbow.”

As his interviewer listened quietly, the mustachioed raconteur discussed Sullivan’s admirably well-researched book about him. A little too quietly, perhaps, since Friedman suddenly interrupted his series of animated observations to make an inquiry.

“Did you go into a diabetic coma, George?” he asked, speaking from his rural Texas home in Medina, where he heads the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch.

Absolutely not. Nodding off when Friedman is talking seems all but impossible.

This, after all, is a man who once served in Borneo as a member of the Peace Corps and later counted South African president Nelson Mandela among his fans.

In 2006, Friedman got more than 600,000 votes when he ran against Rick Perry in the Texas governor’s race. He used several memorable campaign slogans, including “Kinky for Governor — How hard can it be?” and “Why the hell not?”

All told, Friedman got 26 percent of the total votes cast. That’s an impressive number for an independent candidate in any state, let alone one as traditionally conservative as Texas.

“A lot of people — especially young people — said I was first person they ever voted for, and that’s always nice,” said Friedman, who then mused about his popularity with younger music fans in Europe craving a uniquely American form of authenticity.

“After playing in Germany on my last tour, I did three shows in Austria,” he said. “We were on a train ride, during which — in less than an hour — we passed Mozart’s birthplace, Hitler’s birthplace and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s birthplace, or what I like to call: ‘The Evolution of Man’.”

Over the course of a nearly hour-long interview, Friedman also covered an array of other topics.

Kinky Friedman heads the Utopia Animal Rescue Center in Medina, Texas. He is pictured here visiting the Humane Society of Bexar County in San Antonio.

(Photo by Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-NewsAP )

One is his proposed TV talk show, which he hopes will debut next year. Another is an upcoming book he is co-writing for Random House with Louis Kemp, who has been a friend of Bob Dylan’s since Kemp and Dylan met at a Jewish summer camp in 1954 in Wisconsin. Its title: “The Boys from the North Country: My Life with Robert Zimmerman and Bob Dylan,”

Even more notable is the fact that Friedman recently completed “Circus of Life,” his first album of original new songs since 1976’s “El Paso.” Copies of the new release will be on sale at his Belly Up show here and other stops on his current West Coast tour.

Here are edited excerpts of our interview with Friedman, whose songs were recorded by Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam and other admirers on the 1999 tribute album, “Pearls in the Snow.”

Question: Is happiness good or bad for a songwriter — or any writer, for that matter?

Answer: I think that if you’re happy and well-adjusted, you can forget it. You have to be miserable to write a good song. I’m kind of at a point of happiness right now, but I don’t want it to influence me too much. I really don’t want to be happy — and I’m a little too happy right now.

Q: You’ve had success in your life and you’ve had failure. Which has been a bigger impetus?

A: Well, my shrink, Willie (Nelson), says if you fail at something long enough, you become a legend. I like that one; that’s pretty accurate. … Unbounded success is much harder to deal with than failure. Failure is easy and anybody can deal with that. But success — I’ve noticed with the success I’ve had — is a harder thing to work with.

Q: Ever won an award?

A: I did get one award, in 1973: The “Male Chauvinist Pig of the Year Award.” It was from the National Organization for Women, for my song “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed’.” It was a plaque and they sent it to me.

Q: Where do you keep that award?

A: I like to wear it on top of my cowboy hat.

Q: Apparently, the satirical content of your song didn’t resonate with NOW.

A: In January I was on the Sirius/XM Satellite Radio Outlaw Country Cruise, which I found to be a lot more fun. They had a celebrity “Kinky Roast,” during which Steve Earle sang “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed.” He did a great job, and said: “This really takes some balls for me to do this — I could lose my (Hardcore Troubadour) show (on Sirius).” Who knows what would happen in these times if you sang “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed?” If I sing it, which I still do, there’s very little I can be fired from. That’s my problem— there is very little I can take a vacation from in my life.

Q: Have you recently revisited La Jolla, where one of your favorite writers, Raymond Chandler, lived?

A: Well, ‘living on the edge of life’ is a Chandler expression I’ve adapted that I really like. Chandler is also the one who said: ‘Scarcely anything in literature is worth a damn, except what is written between the lines.’ That’s really where the talent is, if there is such a thing. And real talent has always been its own reward. So, at my age, 73 — although I read at the 75-year-old level — there are a few songwriters and novelists who are at the top of their game. It doesn’t stop, but maybe it’s a young person’s game.

Q: You are a prolific author. But your songwriting did stop, for 40-plus years. What led you to write 12 new songs?

A: Last year, at 3 a.m., I was sitting here at home watching ‘Matlock’ on TV and I got a phone call from my shrink, Willie. He was in Hawaii, and says: ‘What are you doing, Kinky?’ I say: ‘I’m watching ‘Matlock.’ And Willie says: ‘That’s a sure sign of depression. Turn ‘Matlock’ off and start writing.’ Well, something about that call really inspired me, partly because when you’re older, you’ve got to look out for No. 1. You can’t be just encouraging others. …

Q: One call from Willie did the trick?

A: Somehow, Willie inspired me to turn ‘Matlock’ off and I started writing songs for the first time in 40-something years. And I was pretty miserable, which is the first step if you want to be a songwriter. I wrote about 12 songs in month and a half. I don’t know where they percolated from, but they were different from what I wrote before.

Q: What happened next?

A: I called Willie, and said: ‘I’ve finished these songs.’ And he said: ‘I’d like you to send them to me.’ Then I asked Willie: ‘How are you feeling?’ Because there had been rumors that he wasn’t well. He said: ‘Oh, a little up, a little down, the usual. And, by the way, Kinky, what channel is ‘Matlock’ on?’ So I was going to call this ‘The Matlock Album’ until I settled on ‘Circus of Life.’

Q: What’s your approach to songwriting?

A: I have a songwriter’s notebook and wait for a phrase I hear, or that I make up or twist in some way. I keep in mind Chandler’s idea of writing between the lines, so that I don’t write a whole bunch of crap, where some of it is good and some isn’t. I guess the guitar is my weapon of choice — and the songwriter’s notebook. I’ve always wondered about that, because that’s what makes songwriting so tough. You’ve got a great melody in your head and rather mediocre lyrics. And today, of course, that’s not even a song. A song today is no more than the phrase: ‘I talked to George on the telephone.’

Q: Really? Can I get a cut of the royalties for that ‘song?’

A: (laughing) At any rate, there’s some wisdom in turning ‘Matlock’ off!

Q: Speaking of TV, is it true you may do a talk show?

A: Yeah. We’re in talks about it. When you’re 73, well, I don’t have a bucket list, at all. I have a f--k it list. That’s the truth. There’s nothing I want to do that I haven’t done, although I’ve got a few ideas and I’ve achieved some of the goals in my life. I wanted to be fat, financially fit and forgotten by the time I was 50. Some of those I’ve achieved and some have eluded me.

Kinky Friedman: “The Man in the Arena Tour,” with Joey Harris

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Belly Up, 143 South Cedros Ave., Solana Beach

Tickets: $22 (general admission); $39 (reserved seating); must be 21 or older to attend

Phone: (858) 481-8140

Online: bellyup.com

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga

UPDATES:

11:19 a.m., April 15: The song “Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life” was written by Paul Craft, not Kinky Friedman.