DATE: Thursday, April 17, 1997              TAG: 9704170438

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Concert review

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   33 lines

AUTHOR BRINGS ABRASIVE WIT TO BEACH PAVILION

Kinky Friedman brought a bagful of jokes to the Pavilion on Wednesday night, and few groups escaped his sharp tongue.

Among those targeted by the country-singer-turned-mystery-writer: religious people, homosexuals and feminists.

``If you can't love a male chauvinist,'' he said, ``you'd better cross me off your shopping list.''

Friedman is the author of several detective novels in which he stars.

Wednesday, the politically incorrect ``Kinkster'' treated the audience that packed a performance sponsored by the Virginia Beach Forum to some excerpts from his new murder mystery, ``Road Kill,'' due out in September.

Friedman made ready to light up a big fat cigar, then thought better of it. After all, he said, sure enough if he did ``one person will cough and then there will be a problem.'' Though some in the audience urged him on, he stuck it back in his vest pocket.

``We're not supporting the Cuban economy,'' he said. ``We're burning their fields.''

The Texan wore a Marshall Dillon frock coat and silver-trimmed cowboy hat. He winters in a broccoli-green trailer and spends the rest of the year in a New York City loft apartment.

There were simply no limits to his language, and his stronger statements set the audience into gales of laughter.

Friedman sang his songs and stroked his guitar in time, but it was his crude, rude jokes the audience liked best.

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