Kinky performs with Shaver and Gilmore to rescue animals
by Tom Geddie
Kinky Friedman can’t help being a character. It’s in his nature as surely as the stinky cigar, the black hat, and the leather jacket he always seems to wear.
Back in the 1970s, he wrote a silly, politically incorrect song, “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven,” and the even sillier “Ol’ Ben Lucas.”
More recently, he wrote a series of mystery novels with himself as the main, reluctant gumshoe. In the last one, 2005’s Ten Little New Yorkers, he apparently killed himself off.
He always has something funny and irreverent to say. Friedman, who spent part of his childhood in Palestine, Texas, and has a psychology degree from the University of Texas, is also running for governor of Texas, which some people believe is a joke.
Friedman also owns the 40-acre Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch near Medina in the Texas Hill Country, where he and his buddies rescue stray and abused dogs and other animals and help them find good homes —nearly 1,500 rescues in seven years.
Back in the 1970s, he also wrote “Nashville Casualty & Life,” a chilling indictment of the callousness of the music business; “Sold American,” an indictment of rampant commercialism; and “Autograph,” a fairly subtle look at the perils of stardom. Those songs and more are part of the 1998 tribute CD, Pearls in the Snow, featuring Asleep at the Wheel, Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett, Delbert McClinton, Willie Nelson, Lee Roy Parnell, Marty Stuart, Tom Waits, Dwight Yoakam, and more doing Friedman’s songs.
Somewhere in between the silliness and the seriousness is Kinky the man. “Both of him” will be on stage at Poor David’s Pub in Dallas on Saturday night, Feb. 18, with Billy Joe Shaver and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Tickets aren’t cheap — $44 — but the cause is special; the show is a benefit for the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch.
“I love stray dogs more than fat cats, and always will,” Friedman said. “It’s kinda hard to keep the ranch going because you survive on the kindness of strangers. The best thing anybody can do is adopt a dog. That’s a higher goal, more important than politics. It’s a measure of who you are, and is as close to God as you can get.
“Right now we’ve got about 60 of the best mutts in the world at the ranch,” he said. “When I’m governor, I’ll make the mutt the state dog. Five of my own will be with me in the governor’s office.”
The rescue ranch is a “never-kill” facility that takes in abandoned and homeless animals. All the animals are spayed, neutered, given their shots and patched up as necessary. The ranch’s board of directors includes Friedman, Willie Nelson, Laura Bush, Lamar Smith and Ann Richards.
Country music plays over speakers for the animals’ entertainment. Volunteers visit and bring treats. The dogs have room to run, and caretakers Nancy and Tony Simons walk them to the river where they can run and swim.
For more information about the ranch, go to
www.utopiarescue.com or call
830.589.7544.
