An Evening with Kinky Friedman

One Texas Jewboy: Abq Jew is really, really happy to announce (if you haven't seen it before on the Abq Jew Go Do! Page or the Weekly Abq Jew Blog Update) that

Kinky Friedman is Coming to Albuquerque!

An Evening with Kinky Friedman

Albuquerque JCC

Saturday December 6 ~ 7:30 pm

Legendary humorist, writer, and musician Kinky Freidman will deliver an evening of song, social commentary, and irreverence at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Albuquerque on Saturday December 6, 2014 at 7:30 pm.  

All proceeds from this event will benefit the JCC's Jewish Arts and Culture program and the Jewish Federation's 2015 Annual Campaign.

Described as a cross between Mark Twain, Groucho Marx, and Johnny Cash, in the early 1970's Friedman achieved international notoriety with his band, Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys, which resulted in an invitation to the Grand Ole Opry.

Meanwhile, his songs  "Ride 'em Jewboy"; "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore"; "Shield Of Abraham"; and "Something's Wrong With The Beaver" and his now-classic albums - Sold American, Lasso from El Paso, and Old Testaments & New Revelations - mixed biting satire with knowing empathy on such issues as the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and the other side of the American dream. In 1999, Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, and Lyle Lovett covered his music for  the tribute album Pearls in the Snow: The Songs of Kinky Friedman.

As an author, Friedman has written for Rolling Stone and Texas Monthly magazines and, most famously, has become a writer of unique and outrageous mystery novels such as Greenwich Killing Time, A Case of Lone Star, and The Mile High Club, which feature a Jewish country singer turned private eye named Kinky Friedman.

This event will also include a live auction of Kinky Friedman memorabilia. For more information call (505) 821-3214.

Based on the above bio, one might think that The Kinkster is all hat and no cattle. But that would be selling Kinky short. Let's start with a little yichus, or, as the goyim say, genealogy. From Wikipedia, of course.

Richard Samet "Kinky" Friedman (born November 1, 1944) is an American Texas Country singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician and former columnist for Texas Monthly who styles himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain. 

He was one of two independent candidates in the 2006 election for the office of Governor of Texas. Receiving 12.6% of the vote, Friedman placed fourth in the six-person race. 

Friedman was born in Chicago to Jewish parents, Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and his wife Minnie (Samet) Friedman. The family moved to a ranch in central Texas a few years later. 

Friedman had an early interest in both music and chess, and was chosen at age 7 as one of 50 local players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky to simultaneous games in Houston. Reshevsky won all 50 games, but Friedman was, by far, the youngest competitor. 

Friedman graduated from Austin High School in Austin, Texas in 1962 and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1966, majoring in Psychology. 

He took part in the Plan II Honors program and was a member of the Tau Delta Phi fraternity. During his freshman year, Chinga Chavin gave Friedman the nickname "Kinky" because of his curly hair. 

Friedman served two years in the United States Peace Corps, teaching in Borneo in Indonesia with John Gross. During his service in the Peace Corps, he met future road manager Dylan Ferrero, with whom he still works today. 

Friedman lives at Echo Hill Ranch, his family's summer camp near Kerrville, Texas. He founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, also located near Kerrville, whose mission is to care for stray, abused and aging animals; more than 1,000 dogs have been saved from animal euthanasia. 

Here is a animated video that Michael Fallik made for one of Kinky's most famous songs, "They Ain't Making Jews like Jesus Anymore."

Abq Jew must warn you that the language and animated action are coarse. But neither is directed at the audience; and both accurately reflect the verisimilitude of the times.

Which brings Abq Jew (and you, if you're still with him) to author Hyam Maccoby; and to the topic "Jews Like Jesus."

For those who are unfamiliar with Hyam Maccoby's work, Wikipedia tells us:

Hyam Maccoby (1924–2004) was a British Jewish scholar and dramatist specialising in the study of the Jewish and Christian religious tradition.

Maccoby was librarian of Leo Baeck College in London. In retirement he moved to Leeds, where he held an academic position at the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Leeds. Maccoby was known for his theories of the historical Jesus and the historical origins of Christianity. 

Maccoby also wrote extensively on the phenomenon of ancient and modern Anti-Semitism. He considered the Gospel traditions blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus and especially the legend of Judas Iscariot (which he believed to be a product of the Gentile Pauline Church) as the roots of Christian antisemitism. Other topics of Maccoby's scholarship include the Talmudic tradition and the history of the Jewish religion.

One of Kinky's lines in "They Ain't Making" is

We don't turn the other cheek, the way we done before.

Aside from the poor diction, Hyam Maccoby would take strong issue with the theology that underlies the verse: that Jesus, a Jew, had adopted acquiescence as the proper response to evil.

Maccoby instead makes the case that Jesus, a Pharisaic Jew and a rebel against the Roman occupation of Judaea, would have resisted Roman evil at every turn and with all means available.

So where did the doctrine of "the other cheek" come from?

From the writers of the New Testament, Maccoby claims, who lived many years after the death of Jesus, in a world (and with a worldview) that was dominated by Rome; and who wrote what they wrote for the Gentiles, and with little knowledge of or regard for Jews and their homeland.

There will be more about Hyam Maccoby and Revolution in Judaea: Jesus and The Jewish Resistance (and Billy Nader) later. In the meantime ----

And even though it's only Thursday ...

Shabbat Shalom, Albuquerque!
Good Shabbos, New Mexico!