Nice Guys Drive Orange VW Buses: The Owen Egerton interview

So, how did you come to Austin?

My family moved to Texas 30 years ago this week.

Wow.

I grew up in a place called Friendswood near Houston. And then came to UT back in '91 and pretty much stayed. I did some traveling—a few excursions to other places, but I mainly stayed here and just kind of fell in love with the town.

Have you ever had the desire to get up and go somewhere else?

Yeah, in fact Jodi and I had big plans to leave the country NOW. We were going to be in Costa Rica at this point. But then, then she got pregnant. And I had something to do with it. So we decided to stay among friends for a little bit longer. But yeah, I’m always sort of excited to move around and travel a lot and see other places. But I do like Austin, I do really feel at home here.

Do you have family still in Texas?

Yep. Actually my sister lives in Houston and my parents-- they just recently retired. Funnily enough, when I told them we were going to have a baby, they decided to move to Austin too.

Is that good? Well, it will be good when you want to go on a date.

Exactly. Well, that’s already happened a couple of times. It’s actually been good. They actually live about 20 minutes away from us.

I can’t get my liberal parents to move to this red state. They are like, “well we like Austin, but we don’t want to be Texans.”

Right. That’s like Jodi’s parents.

Where is she from?

New York.

So were you born in Britain then?

Yes, My family is actually from Wales, but I was born in Ascot, England.*

Do you remember it?

I remember the move.

It must have been very different.

Yeah, when the family arrived, we first came into Florida just for a day and I don’t remember this, but my brothers do—getting the free crowns. My dad was saying no we don’t have money, we don’t want the crowns. And they’re free! And my dad was wowed by free coffee refills. Then we went to Disney World and oh my god! And then Texas, geez, gosh.

Do you go back to visit?

We go back a lot, yeah.

Is it hard traveling with the baby?**

We just took a trip and she was great! She was really good.

Wow. She must be a miracle baby. So, what’s blood pudding?

(laughs) Is that on my web site?

Yeah. It sounds disgusting.

A friend of mine was telling me that he’s got to build me a new website because I haven’t done anything to mine is like four years. Yeah, blood pudding is kind of disgusting and really, really good. Basically it’s clotted blood. It’s blood.

It is blood.

It is blood. And it’s like a sausage. It’s popular in Scotland. So it’s like a sausage and you cut it up and fry it in the frying pan. I haven’t had it in awhile.

Sounds really gross. Bread pudding is good. Blood pudding doesn’t sound good.

Yeah, bread pudding is good.

I wanted to ask about The Sinus Show and how it came together.

Uh, let’s see. Do you want the real story or The Myth?

Whatever you prefer.

I could make up something really good. Tim League actually came up with the idea. People were asking him to show the old episodes of Mystery Science Theater and he thought, why don’t we just do a live show and make it more Austin, make it our own thing? So, he had seen Jerm perform and called up Jerm and Jerm and I were doing shows together at the time so Jerm got me and Jerm also knew this DJ, John, and he got the three of us and basically we just started working on it and man, it really quickly kind of transformed. The first movie we did was called Nude On The Moon, which was a really awful and wonderful Doris Wishman film. It was just going to be a once a month thing. And we put an ad in the paper that if you show up naked you can get in free—it was a joke—and dozens of people showed up naked on this cold night! People were naked! A whole colony of nudists caught on to the whole thing and they were like, God, an event for us!

How Terrible!

It was wonderful. It was great. I think the staff at the Alamo was a little freaked out. Put trashbags down! And so it kind of took off from there. We started doing shows all the time and then we sort of went from these old drive-in movies to more Hollywood films like Masters of the Universe, Xanadu, and then on to Top Gun and movies that were actually popular. And it’s been a lot of fun.

What are some of your favorite movies that you’ve done?

Let’s see. I think some of my favorite stuff is when we don’t actually do a movie but when we do a bunch of clips together. Like our Christmas show. I love our Christmas Show.

It’s fun!

I really have a lot of fun with that. It just moves fast and it’s a lot of work. We just pour over all this random stuff. And we did something like that for Travoltathon. We took clips of all those Travolta movies.

Have you ever tried to do movies that don’t really work?

Well, when we are choosing a movie…like Dirty Dancing was a natural fit. We wanted to do it for a long time, but John loved the movie so it took awhile.

Really?

Yeah. Wow.

(We laugh and laugh and laugh.)

The deal was I wouldn’t do Star Wars and he wouldn’t do Dirty Dancing.

Ahhhh.

But we did it.

Oh, you did do it?

Well, it’s not legal for us to do, so we announced it as a surprise movie. And made the audience swear they had seen Mac and Me.

(Laughs.) That’s great. Mac and Me!

But we did do that movie once as well.

Who has seen that movie? Mac and Me.

It’s a bad movie too.

So why did you want to move to Costa Rica?

There is a friend of mine who is an academic and he does research down there. Has a house. He lives part of the time in Harlem, he and his wife, and part of the time in Costa Rica. And I basically I was driving and I realized how much I loved driving and being away and I was in the middle of New Mexico and I was like God, I love this. I love it. It’s what I need to do. So what I wanted to do was just take Jodi and get on the road and drive to Costa Rica and just keep going west or maybe east. I don’t know. Just somehow make my way around the world. I was thinking, wouldn’t I like to by the time I die have made my way around the world. There is a beautiful song, I don’t know if you’ve heard it, “You could have walked around the world.” It’s a folk song. It’s a great song. Basically just sort of saying all the silly things you do, you know, arguing with fools and you could have walked around the world. I didn’t necessarily wanna walk my way around the world, you know…

Drive a little, take a ship…

Make my way around the world which is not as good a song lyric.

That’s nice. I never wanted to do that. I just wanna go places with boutique hotels. No trekking mountains. I need regular meals and coffee. So you wrote a book! Did that come about as a plan or …?

That’s the thing I most want to do. I would say its my main passion, writing. I do comedy to pay the bills.

So you’re a writer over a comedian over a musician.

Yeah, musician is down there on the list. Comedy has been more successful for me than writing. Yeah, I wrote Marshall Hollenzer Is Driving, I guess that was five years back now. So I’ve written a second book since then which I’m trying to get an agent for.

You got some good reviews on Amazon.

Yeah it did. I go read them when I’m feeling bad. It also got optioned by a small film group called Los Gringos Productions. They have written a script for it and everything like that, so that’s nice.

So how would you describe your writing style? Do you infuse humor into your work?

I think I would be described as a humorous writer but not exclusevily. Marshall Hollenzer is funny, but it’s not a comic book. And the second one, this one I’ve written, Jesus and The Cat Killer, again it uses comedy, but…

Jesus and the Cat Killer?

Yeah, its about the second coming taking place in suburbia.

Oh.

Yeah. So yeah, I write short stories as well. I think as a tradition—if I had to put myself in a tradition—it would be of Tom Robbins, Kurt Vonnegut, George Saunders.

George Saunders is great.

He’s been one of the more modern influences on me. His ability to mix humor with compassion in immense. He has such compassion for his characters. I think he’s brilliant. I don’t mean to put myself in that crowd.

I’m no Barbara Walters. Is it a road story?

It’s basically got three stories. This one fellow is convinced that he should give everything away to homeless people and then the woman who’s surrounded her life with books and then there is Marshall Hollenzer and he’s accidentally discovered that he can control the entire world. So he’s on the road searching for freedom and he accidentally controls the entire world.

So there is a lot of the supernatural in your books.

There is a thought that I remember Tim O’Brien—another writer I really enjoy—Tim O’Brien once said, and I’ll misquote him, but the basic gist was that you should highlight the ordinary with the extraordinary. And that is something I do enjoy. I’m a big fan of writers who are able to depict a simple scene like someone sipping a cup of coffee, and get the heart of a lot of amazing things. What I tend to, though, is the absurd and definitely the extraordinary.

You know, I think you have highlighted what is missing from the new Star Wars films.

Oh yeah, have I?

I think you hit it on the nose. You know how the first three were good because characters were ordinary in the extraordinary circumstances and the little verbal battles between Hans Solo and Princess Leia and all that kind of stuff and real human drama and comedy and these new ones are all extraordinary.

You are right.

(Laughter.)

We’ve figured it out and we need to send a note to George Lucas immediately.

Reverse. Stop.

Yeah, what happened? It’s like everybody lost their soul after the 70s.

I know. And that’s the thing that made me able to make fun of Star Wars and actually got me excited about making fun of Star Wars, though I still really love the movie. And every movie we do, actually.

Right. Who doesn’t love Dirty Dancing?

Exactly. I love it. I love it more now that we’ve made fun of it a hundred times. But after seeing Episode I and Episode 2 it’s like, my gosh, what are you doing?

Who cares about character?

Something is hard when you stop having to struggle. It’s amazing—a lot of artists and writers and musicians, once they’ve succeeded it has killed their art.

Yeah. They are in sort of a bubble.

With a hundred interns telling them their ideas are brilliant. Jar Jar Binks is Gold!

He’s hilarious!

What's more fun, hosting a sing a long or doing a Sinus Show?

Different shows. Different fun. I've had some the best times of my
life doing Sinus shows. Laughing along with 200 people-- being one of
the reasons they're laughing-- it's a blast. And being up on stage
with John and Jerm can be a real adventure. I think some of my
favorite moments are when everything falls apart and an inspired chaos
ensues. At the best of times it's like magic. Each of us making the
other funnier. Sprinting full ahead into who-the-hell-knows.
The sing-a-longs have been incredible. Hosting the Muppet Movie with
my love Jodi was a heart melt. All these folks who know all the jokes,
sing every note and cry when Gonzo sings "I'm Going to Go Back There
Someday." Someone described the shows as church... the good kind.
The Michael Jackson sing a longs have been wild. Henri put together
the clips. I just showed up to host with him. Wow. People dancing in
the isles, people screaming "Sham'on", people lighting their hair on
fire and dousing it with Pepsi. Okay... not the last part. That show
is a sweaty, wild celebration of pop.

What do you love most about Austin?

What do I love most about Austin? That's hard. I love breakfast tacos
and Barton Springs and how many people play music, and how easy it is
to find people sitting on the porch drinking beer at any hour of the
day, and how close Kerville is and how far Dallas is, and people leave
Christmas lights up all year long, and how many coffee shops don't
mind you spending six hours on one cup, and the wild flowers and the
nature trails, the Quakers, the Buddhists, the Greek Orthodox
monastery, the protesters, the volunteers, the hippies, the hipsters,
the former Dell employees, the Dragworms. Town Lake at night, Town
Lake at dawn, watching movies at the Paramount, stumbling
around the grounds of the Capitol at midnight, eating more grease than
eggs at the GM Steakhouse, Kite flying festivals at Zilker, music at
the Red Scoot Inn, art on restaurant walls, folk at the Cactus Cafe,
KUT, KOOP, swimming pools, movie stars and a thousand other things. I
do love this town.

What would you change about Austin?

I wish Austin could have more mixed income areas. A lot of the city is
in transition. Rich moving in, poor being squeezed out. Right now my
neighborhood in south Austin has three story state-of-the-art houses
next door to two room cinder block houses. That's good. Rich people
forget about poor people too easily. Then they forget about need and
vote Republican. Or they find themselves frightened of people driving
cars older than '98. And the lower income folks get knocked out of
neighborhoods their families have been in for generations.
Mixed income allows for mixed culture, ethnic diversity and more
social awareness. All too often an area becomes hip and people move in
and destroy what made the area wonderful in the first place. I
remember when I first came to Austin, Hyde Park was full of old
Austinites, unemployed bass players, and mural painters. It had a
sweet Bohemian flavor. Rich folks started moving in, cleaning up the
houses or building new ones, uping the rent and property values/taxes.
Now it's clean, expensive and less interesting. It's happening to
south Austin and looks like it will happen to east Austin.

What is a perfect Austin date?

November 18th.

Tell us some of your favorite restaurants? Bars? Coffeeshops?

Mornings at Bouldin Creek Coffee House, jazz at the Elephant Room,
soup at Cafe Mundi, mole tacos at Polvos, pints at the Draught House
(Horse), happy hour at the Continental Club. These things make me
happy.

I do a lot of my writing at coffee shops. Bouldin and Mundi and have
been particularly kind to me. Both of them are true soul-wells. If my
writings soak up just a little of the flavor of those places I'll be
on my way to creating some tasty stories.

What five people dead or alive would you invite to a dinner at your house? Anyone.

John, Paul, George, Ringo and Pete Best. I think those boys need some healing time.

Three words that describe you:

Hot, Hot, and Uncircumcised.

Nicknames you are willing to share.

Mine or others? For others: Chipmunch, Hopscotch, Dig-Dug, Fatty,
Hormone, Krackspocktersizer, Fleck, Madam McPoopalot, and Brad.
For me: Gamahuche, Ogre, Dr. Sweetlove with a PhD in Loveology and the
Psychology of Succulent Administration, and The Short One.

Favorite charity?

I'm a big fan of the Red Cross and Hospice Austin. Jodi and I also dig
Heifer International. Instead of money, HI gives an impoverished
community a cow or chicken or some livestock. Instead of a meal they
given a new source of food... milk, eggs, meat. Then they breed.
Vegans must hate 'em, but it's a good group. They work to help a
community build their way out of poverty. Check it out.

*Later he adds: Welsh by blood, British by birth, American by naturalization, Texan by the grace of God.

**Owen and his wife Jodi have a beautiful baby daughter named Arden.