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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Kinky Friedman always had a way with words—something we at Texas Monthly spotted early on. Beyond his stint as a columnist for the magazine from 2001 to 2005, he also moonlighted as a satirist, novelist, songwriter, tequila pitchman, and gubernatorial candidate. The multihyphenate died on June 27, at the age of 79. We tried our damnedest to tell his story, but Friedman never needed any help explaining himself. We scrounged through the archives to find the best of Friedman’s many, many quotables. Here are just a few of the Jewish Cowboy’s colorful anecdotes and one-in-a-million life philosophies, in his own words.Kinky on his friendship with Willie Nelson: “Okay, well, I signed copies of Steppin’ on a Rainbow and Kinky Friedman’s Guide to Texas Etiquette, which…

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Dave Alvin Jimmie Dale GilmoreJimmie Dale Gilmore is a Texan who spent a few formative years in California. Dave Alvin is a Californian who has spent alot of time in Texas. So of course, when the Blaster and the Flatlander began performing together after nearly thirty years of friendship, they leaned into the overlap. The duo’s first album, 2018’s Downey to Lubbock, was named for their respective childhood homes. Now they’re back with Texicali, out June 21 from Yep Roc Records.Texas and California may be rivals in the realms of business, politics, and tacos, but when it comes to music, the two states share kind of a psychic border. “We come from different places, but we come from the same place musically in a lot of ways,” says Alvin,…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Portrait of American musician, author, and comedian Kinky Friedman as he poses backstage during the Farm Aid benefit concert at Texas Stadium, Dallas, Texas, March 14, 1992.Richard “Kinky” Friedman, a Texas icon who infused his songs, fiction, and campaign speeches with a unique and crass humor, died early Thursday, June 27. He was 79. Friedman “stepped on a rainbow” while surrounded by family and friends at his longtime home in the Hill Country’s Echo Hill Ranch, according to a statement released on his X account Thursday morning. He had, in recent years, lived with Parkinson’s disease.Friedman was many things: a musician, a novelist, a satirist, a Texas Monthly columnist, a gubernatorial candidate, a summer camp cofounder, a Peace Corps volunteer, and—of course—a Jewish cowboy. Born in Chicago in 1944 to a World War II airman, Friedman relocated to Houston with his family the following year. He earned the nickname “Kinky” because…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Summer Travel Essentials“Catch flights, not feelings” is just one of the cheeky sayings emblazoned on Talking Out Of Turn’s colorful, retro-inspired travel accessories. The boutique in Dallas’s Bishop Arts neighborhood got its start with stationery but has since expanded with patterned duffel bags and color-blocked hip bags made from recycled water bottles. Their packing cube sets are great for practical reasons but also pack a punch with “flower power” ripstop nylon fabric that feels straight out of the seventies (in the best way). But the thing that really caught our eye? The skate bag. It’s the perfect excuse to bring along the roller skates and pretend like you’re still a teenager living it up on summer break.Below eight more homegrown brands to shop as you plan your…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Jesse 'Bam' RodriguezLike Serena Williams with older sister Venus, like Pedro Martinez with older brother Ramon, Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez started out as the younger sibling who tagged along.It was his brother Joshua Franco, older by four years and three months, who first wandered into the San Fernando Boxing Club in downtown San Antonio, and Rodriguez—full name Jesse James Rodriguez Franco—all of nine years old at the time, went along with him.“If my brother didn’t try it and like it, I would never even have watched a boxing fight to this day,” Rodriguez, now 24 and a champion in two weight divisions, said last week during a break in training. Rodriguez’s main interests at age nine were school and skateboarding. But after watching his big brother do his…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Best Wine Bars in AustinOn a recent evening at Ezov, a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant on Austin’s East Side, I found myself scanning the wine list while my friends perused the menu. A rich red blend from Chateau Musar in Lebanon, a golden Moschofilero from Greece’s Nemea region, or a Nerello Mascalese rosé from Southern Italy were all intriguing selections.As if reading my mind, the sommelier approached and asked if I’d like a suggestion. I showed her the three I was considering, which she approved of before saying, “All these are fantastic, but we’ve got this little gem right here that’s a steal,” she said, pointing to the 2009 Goumenissa from Domaine Tatsis in Greece. “Definitely not something you’ll find anywhere else.” The red wine was relatively low in alcohol, spicy, light-bodied,…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Megan Thee Stallion's New Music 5 Years After Hot Girl SummerAs a New Year’s resolution and in an attempt to embrace being a cowgirl, I decided to learn to two-step. Donning my black Ariats, I jumped into studio classes and eventually tested what I learned on weekly visits to Dallas–Fort Worth’s Western dance clubs, such as Guitars and Cadillacs and Cowboys Red River. The deejays at these spots play the usual bro-country and two-steppin’ songs but also sprinkle in a few line dances set to pop. And for anyone willing to mix their boot-scooting with smooth West Coast swing, the venues throw in a hip-hop song or two. I picked up this formula pretty quickly. Line dances to “Shivers” by Ed Sheeran or “Wobble” by V.I.C. transition easily into the safety of a Bruno Mars…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Allen West questioning a witness during a hearing in Rayburn.If you’ve ever wondered what happens to some formerly lauded chairs of the Texas GOP, look no further than Florida man Allen West. A mere four years ago, the former congressman from the Sunshine State was on a stunning upward trajectory in Texas politics. He came to Texas searching for a cause and early in the pandemic found it: effectively wielding a megaphone to bully party leaders into adopting his brand of far-right conservatism. There was the time, for instance, when he and a handful of far-right Republican officials protested outside of the Governor’s Mansion, in October 2020, openly criticizing Governor Greg Abbott for taking too many COVID precautions. (Abbott would, ultimately, make Texas one of the first states to reopen the economy and drop…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

fourth city bbq trayAt the end of the nineteenth century, St. Louis, Missouri, garnered the nickname Fourth City. Its population trailed only New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia, making it the fourth largest city in the country. While other cities have since surpassed it in population, St. Louis is better known now as the Gateway to the West thanks to the Gateway Arch, completed in 1965. But married couple Greg Mueller and Erica McKinley are bringing the old moniker back with their restaurant, Fourth City Barbecue.“It was going to be Mueller Barbecue, but we just couldn’t do that,” Mueller said, referring to the iconic status of Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor. He’s a student of Texas barbecue, calling Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto an inspiration. Mueller read it…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Playing Texan: Dancer, Texas Pop. 81Filmmakers have long been drawn to “the Texan” as a character type. Our series Playing Texan revisits some of the most notable of these portrayals, from the legendary to the ludicrous, to determine what they say about how the world sees Texas—and how we see ourselves. Another Texas summer has sprung and—to butcher Alfred, Lord Tennyson—a young person’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of getting the hell out of here. Or maybe it’s not just the young. Come next May, I will have been out of high school for thirty years, yet every June I feel the same stirring to light out for the hills and start truly living, something I doubt would go over too well with my wife and kids. There are several explanations…

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