Spanking Watson

Kinky Friedman #12

by Kinky Friedman

Just as every dog must have its day, every Sherlock should have his Watson, and so in
Spanking Watson the indomitable private dick Kinky Friedman embarks on a plan to determine which of his dependable 'Village Irregulars' will make the best sidekick. In order toassess the crew - McGovern, Ratso, Stephanie Dupont, Brennen and Rambam - Kinky assigns to each one the task of figuring out who wrote a death threat to Winnie Katz, the Kinkster's upstairs neighbour and dance teacher. Each one is resourceful in trying to ferret out the culprit - but what truly confounds Kinky is that in the middle of the investigation someone shows up who really does seem intent on killing Winnie. When all is finally resolved, the would-be killer isbrought to justice and Kinky has a new fireplace in his loft (and yes, the two things are connected).

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Humor, Crime, Detective, Novels

Paperback

First published September 6, 1999

About the author

Richard S. "Kinky" Friedman is an American 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 matches in Houston. Reshevsky won all 50 matches, 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 on Borneo in Malaysia with John Gross. During his service in the Peace Corps, he met future Texas Jewboy 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.

Series:
* Kinky Friedman Mystery

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinky Friedman, in his PI alter ego has a troublesome neighbor upstairs. The neighbor runs a lesbian dance studio that stomps around at all hours.

Getting plastered, Friedman concocts a fake crime to get back at her, and things quickly spiral out of control.

Very 90s.

[R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Copious coffee consumption, contract killers, and many a canny conversation with a cat combine to make this Kinky mystery a must for mavens of mirth and mayhem. The political points are amusingly Imusesque in their incorrectness, even by 90s standards, which makes this riotous read a real rarity: a genuinely funny novel.

[notgettingenough · Rating 2 out of 5]

What do I think?

I think it's a case of the fryin' pan's on, but nothin's cookin'.

[Steven Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's my review of "Spanking Watson" that appeared in "Texas Books in Review"

For adherents of "literature," reading a Kinky Friedman novel is like walking into a public restroom and seeing someone taking a Nixon in the sink. At first you're merely disgusted, but after a while, you can't help but wonder if maybe there was a tinge of performance to it after all.

Spanking Watson is my first Kinky Friedman book. I've always been a bit curious about him, since many of the former Gonzo C&W singer's three minute songs are classics of outrageousness. But even his best songs, like "The Ballad of Charles Whitman" or "Asshole from El Paso," start repeating themselves after the first chorus. How would the Kinkster fare over a 200-plus page book? I wasn't sure wanted to find out. But finally, I was drawn into Kinky's world by two vastly different interpretations of his work. The first was Don Graham's review of Kinky's "Willie Nelson" novel a while back in the Texas Observer. Graham, the dean of the state's literary critics, paid proper homage to Kinky's songs, but then dismissed his fiction as a series of mostly stale one-liners. On the other hand, The New York Times Book Review, assessing that same novel, concluded "Any reader who fails to have fun probably has 'a brain about the size of a small Welsh mining town.'"

That line about brain size apparently comes from the Kinkster's own work. Though it's intended to be a putdown, in reality any Welsh mining town, no matter how small, is vastly bigger than the average human brain. So contrary to Kinky's intent, an aversion to his fiction might just be a hallmark of supreme intelligence.

Still, I wasn't about to give Dr. Graham the benefit of the doubt, having disagreed with him a time or two myself in the past. And so it was that I began reading Kinky's newest novel, Spanking Watson.

Though Kinky wastes little effort on plot or character development, it's clear that a lot of work goes into his writing. First, he surveys America's cultural landscape, seizing on whatever goading will most infuriate a diverse and proud array of ethnicities and lifestyles. He creates a universe in which every Italian has mob connections, every Jew is money hungry, and every lesbian is a militant. I've never listened to the "shock jocks" such as Howard Stern or Don Imus. But Kinky refers to them often enough in the book, and one gets the sense that he is their literary counterpart. As Kinky explained to Texas Monthly a few years ago, "Bigots need to be entertained like everyone else."

Kinky's fiction—and I agree with Don Graham here—leaves a lot to be desired, but his unique voice is worth hearing, and is not without charm. His great strength is his gift for metaphor, which remains intact from his songwriting days. At one point he describes his exhausted eyes as resembling "two piss holes in the snow." Cocaine is "Peruvian marching powder." And "taking a Nixon," if you haven't learned yet, is the act of defecating.

Occasionally Kinky's shtick draws real laughter from the reader, though not, I suspect, as often as he would hope. In that sense, his work brings to mind a criticism Larry McMurtry once misdirected at Bud Shrake. In his essay "Ever a Bridegroom," McMurtry wrote that Shrake's fiction suffers because he "can't resist the constant hit....being funny too often in the same vein is as bad as not being funny at all." In Spanking Watson Kinky's brilliant riff on "Modern Jesus Figures" from Lenny Bruce to Abbie Hoffman is unfortunately undercut by his prolonged fascination with a Frenchman who could play recognizable showtunes by blowing air through his anus.

One of Kinky's favorite words in this novel is "tedious." Maybe for him, books are meant to be. His scattershot prose is most effective when read in short spurts. In this way, perhaps Kinky has devised the perfect read for those who only find odd moments to absorb "literature"—During the commercials on television, or, perhaps, while taking a Nixon.

[Kaylee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The back has snippets of people comparing Kinky Friedman to other people under the heading "Comparing the Incomparable".

I happen to think it's quite easy to compare him.

I enjoyed the book for what it was - a smartass yet intelligently written piece of fluff, more about dialog than plot. Of course, I'm lumping all of the narrator's asides and conversations with his cat with actual dialog.

Still.

I thought it was like reading Douglas Adams, only without the scifi. And with more lesbian and fart jokes.

All in all, a fast, enjoyable read. [And he's dead on about the cat, by the way.:]

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't remember too many specifics of the story, other than it was CRAZY PANTS! And that I enjoyed it.

[Mirriam Seddiq · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love everything about this man

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty funny. I like his writing style.

[Carole Kauf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kinky Friedman is crazy! What a wacky book! I found it quite fun, if not totally ridiculous.

[Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will admit, I picked this book up several years ago and thought "the characters are underdeveloped, but the mystery makes it completely worth it!"
Later, I looked up the book and only Then discovered that it was the 12th book in a series. Which explained why the characters were not as developed as I would have liked.
Overall, I still enjoy this book. It's older, and you can tell from a lot of the word choices ("negro" comes up more than you see in modern literature written by white men) but I can say that this book is what started my search for Detective literature.
Well written, sarcastic, and full of ridiculously contrived schemes. Good stuff.

[Karenbike Patterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

With Kinky Friedman you get much the same type of novel as you do with Carl Hiaasen: wit, sarcasm, clever references, and goofy characters. You also get an author with a style that doesn't change. The first 100 pages of this short novel is about Kinky and his disdainful cat, the big hole in his ceiling due to the lesbian dancing class above his loft, and collecting his Village Irregulars to be "Watson's" in his made up investigation. The plot doesn't really matter in this venue to exhibit his cleverness.

[Ole Bobby · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a Kinky-novel. One-liners coming at you like bugs on the highway, which if you're a hungry spider driving a motorcycle, isn't bad at all. He treads the same water as he does in every book, but at least it's a river, so the water moves in a certain direction.

[John Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

At this point, the series hit Get Smart territory. You know the Kinkstah will tell the same jokes as the last 11 books, but in what chapters will he tell them? Just read the first three and you are good.

[Janet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read this for my mystery bookclub. Hated it. Some of the puns were clever and there were some funny bits but it was not worth the time and the story was nonexistent.

[Juan Pinilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a bit of fun and easy reading of a novel, not your high brow literature, but good as a filler of a kind or other.

[Christoph Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of fun, maybe too much. Too many weird things being said and done.

Some might have been or still are typical for NY, who knows, I don't like that too much.

[Dave Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://electrichalibut.blogspot.com/2...

[Charis · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredible as always! kinky never misses

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

My tenth Kinky Friedman crime novel. It's as funny as the best of them and features another offbeat and highly coincidental plot. But the plots of these novels don't matter too much. What's important in a Kinky Friedman book is the quality of writing, specifically the prose style, in fact the one-liners, sardonic witticisms, epigrams and gnomic utterances. The Kinkster is a genius at this pithy, often quasi-vulgar observational (sometimes abstract) humour. On the surface it can be outrageous, politically incorrect, insensitive, but it is never really any of that. There is warmth just under the surface and the irony is more often self-critical than outwardly malign. Consider the fact that Kinky Friedman is a Jewish cowboy and that he has earned the right to be pseudo-scathing about the state of the world. The impression I get from his work is that he is humane and sympathetic but also realistic. One of the great pragmatic dreamers of modern crime fiction. Spanking Watson is funny, wise, worldly and even incredibly daft (in a good way).

[Efe Saydam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ridiculous story is merely a backdrop for the colourful characters, who let the inane events unfold before them, too helpless to change the situation, or perhaps just too drunk to care. But I was generally entertained by Friedman's use of absurd low-comedy, politically incorrect yet well-meaning diatribes, anti-establishment references, subversive leanings, and his pretty hilarious one-liners. ("'You're in America!' I said. 'Speak Spanish.'")

Throw everything into a pot, and this might come out- the broth is thin, but there are plenty of hallucinogenic vegetables. Maybe Jesus was the first Texas Jewboy, after all. What?

[Gary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Private detective lite, The Kinkster is Kinky Friedman, who in the late 60's was frontman for Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. Last year, he ran for governor of Texas, and lost. He also has a series of PI books (this is one), with tongue in cheek jokes, sarcasm, a death threat, and the humor of someone who doesn't take it all too seriously. Many of his asides and observations about life are made as he talks to his cat, who is always non-plussed.

[Valissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I wish those guys could've gotten together and been friends during the flying hours of their madness. Perhaps they did. But like a sleeping cat, the world let them slip away to the stars."

"Jesus speaks regularly to only one group of people. They are the people in mental hospitals. They try to tell us, but we never believe them."

[Rog Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd book because there really isn't a mystery at the start for Kinky to solve so the first part of the book is just about Kinky's relationships with his friends. As ever Kinky Friedman is an amusing writer and so long as you just go with the flow this is an amusing read.

[Marc Rocket · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is basic, but the writing style is very entertaining. If you want relaxing fun read this book. It's also great for all of the pop culture references. You will learn something from this book.
I'll read more
From this author

[Riley Reinhold · Rating 4 out of 5]

not the best of his books it' starts slow it gains a momentum, had its fine phrases here and there but in the end it is truly a Kinky novel again. only for the true fan who cannot live without a Kinky Friedman novel.. as me.

[Jeff Yrmom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy is just nuts. He's got his own thing going on all over the place and you can try to get it. Hes funny and wierd. Good one.

[Vien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love, love, love Kinky Friedman.

[Barry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a hard book to rate. I love the demented humour but it's not really a book, certainly not a cohesive book. Four * humour; one * writing.

[Patricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Enjoy his music, his articles in Texas Monthly and his persona but just could not get into this book. Truth be told, I didn't even finish it which is rare for me.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very, very slow to start. The last quarter of the book had all the action.