TENNIS ANYONE?
aven't played tennis since high school. Haven't touched a racquet since Christ got aced, but I was pretty hot way back when. Got to the state finals in my senior year. My coach, Woodrow Sledge, always emphasized basic skills and ground strokes, a dominant serve, strong forehand and backhand, and a confident, yet conservative approach to the net. Therefore, he was never completely happy with what I will call the peculiar morality of my game. As long as I was winning, however, he'd just pat me on the back and shake his head.
They say sports does not build character, it just reveals it. Maybe this is true, but I think I learned important life lessons from the way I was able to win at tennis. To put the best face on it you could say I played like a high-stakes poker player or a riverboat gambler. There was nothing wrong with my game. It was just that I'd allowed my basic tennis fundamentals to be corrupted and seduced by weaving a web of artifice and delusion. Playing me was, for most good church-going Americans, like playing tennis with a sentient wall of carnival mirrors. And that has been my style ever since. Maybe even before I ever picked up a racquet.
You see, I was a chess prodigy when I was very young. At the tender age of seven I played the world grand master, Samuel Reschevsky, in Houston, Texas. He was there to play a simultaneous match with fifty people, all of whom, except for me, were adults. He beat all of us, of course, but afterward he told my dad he was sorry to have had to beat his son. He just had to be very careful with seven-year-olds. If he ever lost to one of them it'd be headlines.
The way you play a game, especially as a child, does more than reveal your character. I believe, after some grudging reflection, it provides a psychological peephole into the kind of person you will someday be. The way you play the game becomes an ingrained, living thing, a succubus that eventually determines how you play the game of life.
As far as chess was concerned, however, you could say I peaked at the age of seven. But by then, I now realize, I'd internalized the nature of the game. Very possibly, I'd unconsciously brought a sidecar of chess to my game of tennis. After all, tennis is not a team sport; the way you play tends to reveal who you really are. As long as you're winning, of course, nobody ever notices.
The game I played, the one that mildly irritated Coach Sledge, was an extremely duplicitous, downright deceitful at times, fabric of cat-and-mouse conceit. Yes, I'd begun with a strong, left-handed serve. But after that, things tended to degenerate. My stock-in-trade became a willful charade of evil fakes, feints, and last-moment, viciously undercut backhands. In other words, I was playing physical chess. There is no morality in chess or tennis, of course; morality, I suppose, is considered to be confined only to the game of life. Again, when you're winning, nobody notices.
Opposing players, many of whom were superior to me in basic tennis skills, were often left shaking their heads in what looked to me like a slightly more demonstrative impersonation of Coach Sledge. I would smile and graciously accept whatever accolades were thrown my way by any lookers-on. Sometimes there were stands full of people and sometimes there was only the sound of one hand clapping. It didn't matter. I knew. Deceiving the opponent was just as good as, indeed, it almost seemed preferable to, beating him with sound ground strokes and solid play. When you beat a highly skilled player in such a fashion, you almost have to struggle to contain your glee. I got pretty good at that, too.
When I graduated high school I left the sport of tennis far behind me, much as I'd done with chess back in my childhood. I could still play either of them, of course, but life was moving too fast for chess, and tennis seemed to require too high a degree of tedium in finding appropriate courts, lining up appropriate opponents, and constantly changing into appropriate clothing. It just didn't seem appropriate. Besides, I had college to deal with. My tennis racquet remained in the closet; the only webs of deceit associated with it were now woven exclusively by highly industrious spiders.
But, to be sure, I was quite busy myself. College was a whole new ballgame, as they say. Many of the kids who were the stars of my high school senior class went directly to pumping gasoline. New facts emerged in college, and I discovered to my personal delight that I flourished in this new environment. A deft talent for obfuscation works wonders with any seemingly sophisticated social set. "What you do in this world," the great Sherlock Holmes once said, "is a matter of no consequence. The question is what you can make people think you have done." Like Sherlock, I somehow instinctively knew never to reveal my methods.
No matter what anybody tells you, relationships between men and women on this particular planet are anything but straightforward and forthright. A successful relationship is usually governed by forces ingrained from childhood that one or both parties often remain totally unaware of. One may be a born gold digger looking forever for a free ride. One may be a caregiver, always looking for a bird with a broken wing. It's not so important who the two people are: timing and what they are is usually what counts. That's how the game is played and won. Sometimes, however, the bird with the broken wing heals up and beats you to death with it.
I met my future ex-wife, Leila Marie, in anthropology class, on one of the rare occasions I attended. I cut a lot of classes and (I hope you won't be disappointed) I also cribbed an exam now and then in the manner of Ted Kennedy at Harvard. After all, I was enrolled in a highly advanced liberal arts program at the time that was mainly distinguished by the fact that every student had some form or other of facial tic. Every student, that was, except Leila Marie.
Leila Marie was a perky brunette with flashing green eyes who helped me write my monograph for anthropology: The Flathead Indians of Montana. Even with Leila Marie's talented and efficient help, it soon became apparent that liberal arts was never intended to be my long suit. I didn't want to become some stuffy professor helping students learn about the Flathead Indians of Montana. If they were burning with intellectual desire to find out about the Flathead Indians, they could damn well go to Montana and study campfire shards. I needed a field that was more applicable to today's world. A field in which I could help others, but also help myself. Meanwhile, the only field of study I seemed to be identifying with was Leila Marie.
Not only did Leila Marie appear to have an infinite amount of income, but she was also very easy on the eyes and lips. On top of that, no pun intended, she seemed to be willing to do anything it took to see that I succeeded. As things transpired, it was going to take quite a bit. I had decided that I wanted to go to medical school. It was not going to be easy and it was not going to be cheap. That was where Leila Marie came in.
I was always pretty strong when it came to the old gray-matter department but I must confess I was not prepared for organic chemistry. Leila Marie had to practically walk me through that one. But somehow we managed. I came to rely upon her judgment, her hard work ethic, and, yes, her financial resources. But I worked hard, too. Leila just worked a little harder. She even took a waitress job on the side when medical school tuition loomed near. That meant a lot to me. Besides, I've always been a sucker for attractive waitresses.
I didn't get into the best medical school, but I did get into medical school and that's what counts. In medical school, the guy who comes in last in his class is still called Doctor. We had to move to the island of Grenada and Leila Marie was beginning to look a bit shopworn from working two jobs, but we looked to the future and somehow kept moving forward. I believed in myself and Leila Marie believed in me and sometimes that's all that keeps you going. Fortunately, I could stand the sight of blood. Otherwise, I would've had to go to law school.
Leila Marie and I got married about the time I realized I wasn't going to be a brain surgeon. As long as I finished medical school and got my internship I didn't really care what kind of doctor I'd become. Just as long as I didn't have to make house calls. You had to be sort of ruthless about the whole thing or otherwise you wouldn't get through. What was the point of saving the world if you couldn't save yourself? So I became a proctologist
. It's nothing to be ashamed of, I figured. Besides, you have to work with so many assholes every day you might as well get paid for it.
After medical school we moved to a new town where I took my internship at the local hospital. If you've never gone through an internship you probably have no idea how much of your personal life it consumes. Every night in the emergency room I'd witness the flotsam and jetsam of humanity walk, crawl, wheel themselves, or be carried past my increasingly jaded irises. People with limbs missing. People with gunshot wounds. People stuck together fucking. It was a real mess but I think I can truly say that it made a doctor out of me. All those hours at the hospital, of course, had a rather debilitating effect on my marriage. But it was at about that time that I took a turn for the nurse.
She was a gorgeous, young, blue-eyed blonde from the Great Northwest and she had a real way with people and one of them was me. When you work with somebody in life-and-death situations, you really get to know them. Her name was Lana Lee and I credit her with bringing the fun and excitement back into my life. Somehow, I had grown past Leila Marie, who'd continued working her dreary jobs and complaining about the long hours the internship was causing me to keep. It was kind of sad, but increasingly Leila Marie seemed to be living in the past and I seemed to be living for the future. And Lana Lee seemed inexorably to be a part of that future.
If there's one thing I know about destiny it is that you can't count on it forever. I knew things couldn't go on like this, and sure enough they didn't. Tragically, in the first year of my private practice, Leila Marie died rather suddenly of a fairly
arcane illness that is faintly related in the literature to toxic shock syndrome. The malady was impossible to treat, diagnose, or detect, and it caused me no little grief to realize the irony that I was a doctor and there was nothing I could do for her. The subsequent autopsy revealed no clue as to the cause of her death.
Lana Lee was there to support me, however, and one thing led to another. When the Lord closes the door He opens a little window, they say. In my case, at least, it certainly seems that way. There was, indeed, a nasty little hint of suspicion surrounding me after Leila Marie's death, but it comes with the territory. Doctors have become as used to this sort of mean-minded gossip as we are to scribbling prescriptions or working with HMOs. I didn't let it get me down.
Today, I'm happily married to Lana Lee and I have a thriving practice. If you're patient and you see a lot of patients, the medical profession can provide a very lucrative lifestyle. Not only that, but it's a good way to help serve your fellow man. And speaking of serving, guess what? I've taken up tennis again.
SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES
hen I was a child I spoke as a child and, believe it or not, I smoked as a child. At the tender age of eighteen months, when my mother's back was turned, a prescient if somewhat perverse uncle surreptitiously substituted a cigar for my pacifier. Don't know if I should thank Uncle Eli or not but sixty-one-and-a-half years later I'm not only still smoking, but I've started my own cigar company. I named it Kinky Friedman Cigars or, as it's become increasingly and affectionately known throughout Texas and the world, KFC.
Though smoking in general is currently being attacked from all quarters, I have no qualms about becoming the George Foreman for my product. I strongly believe smoking cigars can yield at least three positive effects—reducing stress, increasing longevity, and irritating the hall monitors. From time to time, of course, as the situation dictates, I still resort to the pacifier. This draws the occasional rude comment one might expect but truthfully there's not that much difference between a good cigar and the time-honored pacifier. After a liftetime of smoking I only have one or two taste buds left. But I can assure you, those little buds are having one hell of a party.
Simply to suck on a cigar these days is practically tantamount to making a political statement. Politicians and bureaucrats at all levels of government have failed so disastrously at resolving the issues that matter to most people, i.e. health care, education, immigration, political reform, energy costs, property taxes, utility bills, criminal justice issues, environment, toll roads, etc., that all they seem able to do is tax tobacco and pass ever-more-stringent smoking regulations. In other words, the combined might of our government appears only capable of criminalizing trivia. You'd think George Washington crossed the Delaware expressly to keep Kinky Friedman and his cigar at least twenty feet away from the entrance to Katz's Deli.
As founder of Kinky Friedman Cigars, I am, of course, well aware of some people's concerns regarding the use of our product. But more laws and more regulations are not the answer. Folks, we're turning our beautiful country into nothing more than a condo association. Rules, regulations, and political correctness are strangling the best thing America has to offer— freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom to be who you are. If you own a bar and want to have smoking, you should be able to put a sign on the door, "Smoking allowed."
If you don't want smoking, you put up a sign, "No smoking." Maybe you have a bar and you don't want drinking. That's fine, too. If you're gay, you can go to a gay bar; if you're straight, you can go to the Jewish Singles Purim Party. This is the way America should be.
Instead, we have a Houston city councilman explaining why he voted for a city-wide ban on smoking in bars. "What if I want to bring my kids to the bar?" he said. Common sense is up in smoke, folks. Meanwhile, misguided zealots behind draconian smoking regulations quite often fall back on the argument that, "It's for your health." They haven't noticed, apparently, that whenever you see a ninety-year-old geezer, most of the time he's still puffing a stogie. On the other hand, you almost never see a ninety-year-old smoking a cigarette. This is because we cigar smokers religiously follow the wise example of Bill Clinton. We don't inhale. That's why my message to young people is, "Cigarette bad—cigar good."
Unfortunately, not everybody's fired up—no pun intended— about my new venture. For example, one person recently contacted the Web site with the following message: "It is sad to see an icon turn into a whore."
"I don't care what you call me," I wrote back. "Rick Perry calls himself a public servant. Al Sharpton calls himself a civil rights leader. Besides, whores usually tend to hang around with a better class of people than icons." I am waiting, with bated smoke-rings, for his response.
The other folks who aren't too happy with Kinky Friedman Cigars are some of the big cigar industry Goliaths who don't like seeing little Davids sharing their shelf-space in Texas stores. Nevertheless, after only a matter of months as a small, start-up company, my friend and now CEO, Little Jewford (He's a Jew and he drives a Ford), has filed the following report: "We've moved more than 100,000 sticks in the last quarter. You're on track to become the Famous Amos of the cigar world!"
While being the face of the company seems like fun, I knew we still needed some brains. For that, I tapped a true cigar professional, Sean Robinson, to be president of KFC. Sean traveled to the jungles of Honduras and there, amidst machine guns, tarantulas, and beautiful women rolling beautiful cigars on their beautiful thighs, he befriended a man named Nestor, the king of the Cuban cigar-makers, who promised to create a special new blend for Kinky Friedman Cigars.
When Sean returned, he had several small darts in his back, compliments of the Mosquito Indians, and five new lines of cigars—The Governor, The Kinkycristo, The Texas Jewboy, The Willie (which has a little twist on one end), and The Utopian, the only cigar in America benefiting animal rescue. Profits go to Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch. You can get all these cigars at good cigar stores everywhere or you can order sample packs and boxes right off the Web site, kinkycigars.com.
What else do you guys have to offer? you may be wondering. Well, I'll share a little trade secret with you. Sean, Nestor, and Gary Irvin, our chief tobacconist, are currently developing three new lines: The Clinton, a replica of the Cuban Montecristo I once presented to Bill at the White House; The Kinky Lady, with the butt (of the cigar, that is) dipped in hone
y; and a brand new cigar, the blend of which, I am told, enhances the flavor of tequila.
Now I'm sure there are those who will be casting asparagus upon the Kinkster, but I promise you my words are not hazardous to anybody's health. I'm just saying that God's not going to honk your horn until He's good and ready. So you might as well find what you like and let it kill you.
Now don't get me wrong. I admire Lance Armstrong and his work fighting cancer, and I consider him a friend. I respect anyone with sincere and genuine intentions regarding the welfare of all people. What I object to are these officious little boogers who use health as a smoke screen to empower their agenda and themselves. What I want these people to put in their pipes and smoke is this: Spain, Portugal, Israel, Japan, Korea, Italy, France, and Greece all have more smokers per capita than the U.S. They also have lower rates of lung cancer and heart disease. What can we conclude from this? Speaking English is killing us!
THE NAVIGATOR
ecause I'm the oldest living Jew in Texas who doesn't own real estate, and given my status in general as a colorful character, there are those who profess to be surprised that I ever, indeed, had a father or a mother. I assure you, I had both.
For many years my parents owned and directed Echo Hill Ranch, a summer camp near Kerrville where I grew up, or maybe just got older. I remember my dad, Tom Friedman, talking to all of the campers on Father's Day in the dining hall after lunch. Each summer he'd say essentially the same words: "For those of you who are lucky enough to have a father, now is the time to remember him and let him know that you love him. Write a letter home today" Many years have passed since I last heard Tom's message to the campers, but love, I suppose, has no "sell by" date.
What Would Kinky Do?: How to Unscrew a Screwed-Up World Page 4