Josh Alan Friedman, a talented Dallas writer and musician, spent his early years in New York, where he was the only white kid attending the last segregated black school on Long Island. Now he’s written an “autobiographical novel” about the experience called Black Cracker. So last night Dawn Rizos, owner of The Lodge gentlemen’s club, hosted a dinner and book-signing there for Friedman and 75 or so of his friends, plus assorted media types like the Dallas Observer‘s Robert Wilonsky (that’s Big Bob just below Friedman’s left arm in this photo by Scott Mankoff) and Alan Peppard of The Dallas Morning News.
While a big-screen TV on the wall showed the exotic dancers doing their thing in another room, guests such as Friedman’s old friends The Ackermans, a husband-and-wife singing duo from Dallas who have a major following in Switzerland, chowed down on short ribs, salmon or jumbo shrimp.
Rizos, who’s known Friedman for awhile, shared a business plan for her proposed Elaine’s Brasserie–a New Orleans-style club and restaurant–with scribes including Peppard. (He’s shown at left here in this Mankoff photo with Rizos and Friedman.)
And the man of the hour, who’s written books like an autobiography of his former boss at Screw magazine, porn guru Al Goldstein, said he has high hopes that Black Cracker will be his biggest seller yet.
“I’m never going to do anything better than this,” Friedman said.
