Books : Eat, Drink and Be Kinky : Excerpts

Introduction

As a famous homosexual once said, "Every time my friends succeed I die a little." Happily, this is not the case with my friend Mike McGovern's new killer bee cookbook, Eat, Drink, and Be Kinky, upon the puissant pages of which millions of Americans will soon be spilling extremely tasty pasta sauce. McGovern's not only my favorite Irish poet, he's also one hell of a chef. This is especially true when he's not cookin' on another planet.

I also believe this book may provide some long overdue remedies to the spiritual malaise that has overcome America since chain restaurants have turned us all into chain people. The work you are about to read is far more than a cookbook. Eat, Drink, and Be Kinky will have a broad, engaging appeal not only to serious gourmands but also to alcoholics and sex perverts as well. In fact, I think of this book as sort of a culinary version of James Joyce's Ulysses. McGovern's masterwork, to my mind, compares quite favorably with Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. For one thing, it's shorter. For another, it's funnier. If, indeed, a recipe book can ever be said to be funny. I certainly hope it's funnier than this introduction.

The problem that seems to have arisen with McGovern's mighty effort is that he appears to be taking his handiwork even more seriously than I do. He sees himself as a modern-day Ernest Hemingway; our mutual editor, Chuck Adams, as a vaunted Maxwell Perkins; and myself as a pesky F. Scott Fitzgerald, consumed with envy at the possibility of being eclipsed upon the timeless literary horizon. Nothing, believe me, could be more ridiculous. I want McGovern's book to do well. I just don't want it to do so well that he moves up from a friend to a contact. That could get pretty tedious. Of course, now that I think about it, our relationship has always been pretty tedious.

But Mike McGovern is certainly not without charm. He pedals his large white luminous buttocks around New York on a bicycle. His somewhat decrepit, lox-colored couch has been across the Atlantic twice. He's the only tenant in his building who steadfastly refuses to let the entire complex go condo. His taxes are prepared by the old man who runs the neighborhood pizza shop. He was friends, in younger days, with Martin Luther King Jr. He was also quite friendly with Al Capone's chef, a worthy mentor for the young McGovern, though he bore the rather unusual name of Leaning Jesus. McGovern also got the first jailhouse interview with Charles Manson while working for the New York Daily News. It should also be noted that he once combed his hair before meeting a racehorse. And, not to bury the lead, he's also the best cook I've ever met in my life.

Though the wit and wisdom of the Kinkster is liberally sprinkled throughout this book, along with various sordid anecdotes and recipes from the Village Irregulars, the true centerpiece on the table is McGovern's cherished collection of divinely wrought, hellishly sought, and sublimely thought-out recipes. From time to time McGovern himself will wax lyrical about Italian heroes and American whores and how you shouldn't eat anything bigger than your head. McGovern himself, of course, has an enormous head. I myself have a much smaller head (uncharitable people have, on occasion, called me a pinhead) and over the years I've developed a rather severe case of head envy. But I suppose this is hardly the place to be parading my personal problems.

If you try these recipes I know you're going to love them. But they're not for everybody. It's possible a few people might experience a mild form of projectile vomiting. A rare individual here and there might try one of McGovern's more exotic concoctions and find himself squirting out of both ends. In the unlikely event this should happen to you, you could try fasting until there's peace and freedom in the world. If this doesn't work (and it usually doesn't) you could try pouring Vodka McGoverns down your neck until you find yourself out where the buses don't run. If you see a large man with a large head pedaling his large, white, luminous buttocks by on a bicycle, you'll know you're there. I'll be the guy puking in the alley who comes up to you and says, "Are you new in town, sailor?"

In closing, I'd like to thank my parents, teachers, and rabbis, and Mike McGovern for being Mike McGovern. He's possessed of great intelligence, kindness, and honesty, not to mention an incessant, rather annoying Peter Pan-like innocence that never fails to get up my sleeve somewhat severely. I hope you eat, drink, and be kinky. I hope you never wear a white shirt when you're eating pasta. I hope you never have McGovern for a housepest.

Yours in Christ,

Kinky Friedman
December 7, 1941
Buttflaps, Montana