Val and Jane went to Kinky Friedman’s cigar store fun tonight. Me? Too tired to drive 30 minutes to shake hands with a writer. Val sat down after she got home and emailed me and some of her friends about the Friedman encounter. There’s a photo of the event in the camera (downstairs along with Val who’s sitting at her iMac.) I’ll add pix tomorrow after I download camera in the morning, I’m way too lazy and tired to go down there and get it right now.
Five minutes with Kinky Friedman. Nov. 1, 2007, Greenville, NC
Kinky was exactly the Kinky Friedman on TV, at bookfairs… everywhere. Today was his birthday and apparently the day’s celebration included pimping his cigars at Blackbeard’s Cigars while on his way to a Mendenhall performance at the ECU HumorFest in Greenville, NC the next night. Three men with lit cigars blocked the entrance to the tobacco fumery. Jane and I almost had to push this one guy out of the way to get in.
During the short walk of about five feet from the door of the store to the special cigars displayed on a small folding table, we looked for Kinky. Then… we noticed him. His back to us as he scarfed down a nasty-looking piece of Food Lion sheet cake with a spork while smoking a cigar the size of my foot.
Cigar smoke enveloped the store. Local men who felt importantly insignificant slapped each other on the back, guffawed and walked proud. Not a single one of them knew Kinky Friedman wrote New York Times Bestseller novels. They saw a Texan who smoked really big, expensive cigars, an out-of-towner who had no clue how significant “they” were to the community.
A few people stood outside the store. We noticed them and wondered why they hovered “round the door” . They peered and pointed through the plate glass window… “there, see… over in the corner, black hat… that’s him… see see?” Two steps into the store and *duh* — it’s a cigar store, not many wanted to enter the foggy strip mall dungeon.
Except for the huddled asses outside looking in, we were the only women within a hundred feet of the place. Kinky dressed all in black. He looked like every other Texan I ever met while growing up in Arkansas — only smarter and more liberal. He put down his paper plate, and tried to shelve the half-smoked cigar so he could shake my hand. Lit stogie secured, he looked me in the eye as every REAL Texan does and asked my name. I replied in full “Valerie MacEwan and this is my daughter Jane.” He then shook her hand and asked me how everything was going lately. I said pretty cool, and wondered if he would tell me what to buy for “the prof” who loves a good cigar and a large autumn bonfire. Kinky smiled and recommended the “Texas Jewboy”. Dammed if I didn’t buy one. An $8.95 cigar and I don’t know jackshit about cigars. He is a consumate salesman, that Kinky. Pimping hand-rolled cigars instead of words in eastern North Carolina.
I asked — did he have any of his books with him, perhaps the latest non-fiction that just came out? “No… I sure don’t.” “No books? Not any of them here?” He looked at me like that was the last thing he expected me to ask and said, “No but I’ll have some with me at ECU.” I laughed. “What am I supposed to do, go to Barnes and Nobles and come back here with it so you can sign it?” He said, “Uh yeah, do that… or get one somewhere… mmmm Barnes and Nobles…”
His roadie in the shiny blazer glad-handed me, then gave me a little friend-hug and said, “Hey! He’ll sign your cigar right on the wrapper, and if you buy a box of cigars…. huh? How much are they? hmmmm, let me look, ahhhh $180 for a box, and we can take off the celophane wrapper and he’ll sign his name, right here on the wood…” So I looked at the carney and said, “You’re full of shit if you think I would buy a $180 box of cigars.” The hustler laughed then looked around for another prospect.
It was a cigar shop the size of the downstairs of our house, 1/4 was a humidor so it was Kinky, his front man in a sparkly blazer, and about 10 farts who wanted to be “cool” and hang with Kinky for his politics (he is running for gov of TX… duh) and then there was a local fool (Hnery someone) who does a public channel good morning show (I think) who sat in the special Kinky-the-Star barstool-height chair and who was too big a bufoon to realize his social blunder. Kinky introduced us (Jane and me) to all his cigars, talked about the flavor of each one, and quickly realized I didn’t give a rat’s ass but that I’d buy 2 cigars regardless. Then the front-man asked if I wanted a photo taken with Kinky, so of course… surreal it was. .. and photo he did take. One shot.
So there you have it. A store full of cigar smoke, a few college kid trying to be frat-boy cool, no Indian, and a huge ass birthday cake.
And Barnes and Nobles had one copy of an out-of-date paperback written by Friedman about how to be a Texan. When asked why the store didn’t have copies of his latest book, the clerk got snotty and told us the manager could not know about ordering special books if the organizers of the event did not tell them about it in advance. Jane said, “Does your manager read the newspaper? Watch the news? Shop in any local stores? Read the New York Times Book Review? There were articles about his ECU appearance for the HumorFest in all of them.” The clerk copped an attitude again (you don’t think she was a bit intimidated by the formidable mother-daughter tag insult team, do you?) said they only have about four of them in the first place and other people had been asking about it… would I like to order one of… what’s his name again… books? At which point Jane and I began one of our infamous walking-around-the-store diatribes in loud assertive woman voices “These people do not even KNOW who Kinky Friedman is! How can a New York Times Bestselling Author and candidate for GOVERNOR of TEXAS be in Greenville NC and the freakin’ bookstore, the ONLY bookstore in town doesn’t have a single book! God, this part of the United States can really SUCK sometimes.”
Arrrggghhhh. B&N left out of the show. How humiliating. A best-selling novelist comes to town and sells cigars. Cigars! The shame of it all… the politics of publishers and jerk-in-box stores.
I bought a bag of Cafe Verona, two Elizabeth George paperbacks and we then walked across the parking lot to dinner at Chili’s — a restaurant in the process of renovation as-you-dine… nice.
Then Jane and I drove on to Tuesday Morning, which closed at 8:00 and it was 8:05 so we went to Old Navy and I bought a really cool coat for $12.98 and half a dozen dog toys that were 75% off.
All in all, a damn nice evening with my daughter. I couldn’t have asked for better female companionship. And Caroline will be here from Pittsburgh on the ?? 17th? Excellent.
and about your other issues… like wrecks, and cancer, and sons coming home to roost… hell — tonight I saw Kinky Friedman, shook his hand. And Clyde Edgerton’s coming to Washington in March.
everything else is just gravy.
val
Wish I’d gone along. Val can always find something fun to do.
