Getting Kinky

So I decided to walk to Grand Central after yoga today in order to take advantage of the last, lingering warm-weather days and in hopes that I'd bump into some unusual NYC spectacle (which usually ends up happening). I wanted to read up some more on Alex Grey so I wandered into a Barnes & Nobles where I was roped in (a fitting desciption) to listening to a campaign speech/book talk given by "Kinky Friedman," a Texas politician who lost the race for governor (.......he claims it was because of money issues........). He was promoting his book You can Lead a Politician to Water, But you Can't Make him Think, an ironic title given his occupation, yet a fitting autobiographical title. He introduced himself with a nice, southern "where the Hell am I?" from the CD aisle out of which he emerged, apparently lost and confused about the hard-to-navigate lanes, all of which run parallel to each other and lead to the front of the store. After that he proceeded to make a few racially charged Jewish jokes, one about Hitler, and an arcane one that involved a penis. The cigar he carried never left his hand - he used it as a pointer and a lead into another stab at humor. "I'm not too fond of Bloomberg. He adopted the smoking-ban that barred me from lighting up outside this building." When asked if he ever considered that his cigar-toting tactic was setting a bad example to youths, he claimed that he was pro-cigar, yet anti-cigarrette. He then proceeded to advertise his "Kinky Friedman Cigar Line," which I thought was another joke, but apparently is a real busines pursuit according to his website, www.kinkyfriedman.com, which also features his Salsa and "Original Texas Jewboy" T-shirt line He finished up the night by reading a quote from his book that was basically the same cricket-in-hand-of-wise-blind-man story that was used in SuperBad, but with a southern twist. Honestly, I got a kick out of the whole ridiculous campaign and I still question whether or not "Kinky" was actually an actor masquerading as a Texas politician. At least he was against the death penalty..... and Jewish people. Just kidding. About the Jewish people. Not the death penalty.

wild.