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Overview
Kinky Friedman, the original Texas Jewboy, takes us on a rollicking, rock-and-rolling tour of his favorite city: Austin.
Maybe you want to know which restaurant President Bush rates as his favorite Austin burger joint. Or maybe you want a glimpse of Willie Nelson’s home life (hint: Willie plays a lot of golf). Perhaps you want to get the best view of the Mexican free-tail bats as they make their nightly flights to and from the Congress Avenue Bridge. Or maybe you’re itching to learn the history of a city that birthed Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and countless other music legends. It’s all here in The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic, the slightly insane, amazingly practical, and totally kick-ass guide to the coolest city in Texas by none other than Kinky Friedman.
This ain’t no ordinary travel guide, neither. “Like most other busy cities these days, Austin is not very effectively traversed by foot,” Kinky explains. “You must understand that ‘a walk in Austin’ is primarily a spiritual sort of thing.” As might be expected from this politically incorrect country-singer-turned-bestselling-mystery-author, the Kinkster’s tour includes a bunch of stuff you won’t find in a Frommer’s guide, from descriptions of Austin’s notable trees and directions to skinny-dipping sites to lists of haunted places and quizzes and puzzles. So put on your cowboy hat and your brontosaurus-foreskin boots and head down south with the only book you need to get to the big heart of this great city.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Irreverent Texas novelist, songwriter and self-described "Gandhi-like figure" Kinky Friedman has not allowed his pursuit of the Lone Star State governorship to interfere with more important matters. In The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic, the Kinkster guides us on a rock-and-rolling, mind-expanding tour of Austin, the city that skinny-dips but does not sleep. You can read this book as a Frommer's Guide for the truly jaded or just enjoy the ride.Pamela Paul
The book is more an ode to the self-described Kinkster than it is a guide to Austin proper, even with Friedman's desultory inclusion of to-do lists, quizzes and restaurant recommendations. He proffers his advice as a local yokel and a man's man, a ''Texas Jewboy'' -- which is also the name of his frequently mentioned rock band.— The New York Times