Interview: Ernie Cline

Interview: Ernie Cline

Apr 05

Originally published March 11, 2003

In Internet terms, if you can create one thing that people email around to one another, you’re a star. If you can follow up with a sophomore effort, that gets even more attention, you’re a superstar. Ernie Cline is now working on his third meme, as people slowly begin to start describing something extra cool as being “Airwolf,” making him, well, at least a superstar. What comes after “superstar” hasn’t been worked out yet.

The first time I ran across Ernie was when a friend sent me his script for Buckaroo Banzai Versus the World Crime League (you know, the second movie mentioned at the end of the first movie — the one they never made, the bastards). The second time I ran into Ernie was when a friend sent me the link to his awesome, geek-tinged, spoken word rants. Then another friend sent me the link. Then three people emailed me a text version of one of his rants, though now stripped of the author’s name. And so it went over the next few weeks. You might have run into one of these emails already, the most popular being, “When I Was a Kid.”

Taking to the Austin area slam poetry circuit (I don’t know if they actually have a circuit or if they just meet randomly at coffee bars. It sounds cooler that there’s a “circuit”) with his mix of writings about everyday things (though with a twist, of course), like the thought of winning the lottery or beating the guy at the movie theater for talking on his cell phone during the film, to full blown fanboy diatribes about the need for nerd porn, Ernie racked up a handful of championships (see, circuits have champions, so it all makes sense) and then retired.

This being the Interweb age however, you never just “stop.” While Ernie went about his business and planned his next move, his website, with its Buckaroo Banzai script and mp3 recordings of his favorite readings, continued to generate interest and (as I mentioned before — pay attention, damn it) waves of anonymous emails.

And that sucks. Really. Why do they do that anyhow? What’s the thrill of circulating something without giving credit? It’s not even plagiarism, it’s just null. At least they didn’t ascribe it to the wrong person — “When I Was a Kid,” by Dennis Miller (pfft, Miller wishes…)

Maybe I’m just pushing wind here, but if none of this makes any sense to you, head to Ernie’s site, check out his spoken word, have a look at his script, poke around a bit, then come back here and rejoin the class. Go ahead, we’ll just wait here.

Now, to set the record straight and give a name to that stuff in your inbox, Entertainment Geekly happily presents a chat with Ernie Cline.

EG: So, tell the studio audience who you are and what you’re about — where you live, what you do for a living, the names of your cats, and that sort of thing.

EC: I was born March 29th, 1972 in Ashland, Ohio. Here’s my canned bio:

“Ernest Cline was born and raised in a small town in central Ohio. He spent his youth watching too many movies, slaying imaginary dragons, reading science fiction novels, playing video games, and generally pretending he was somewhere else. He now lives and works in Austin, Texas. But he still does a lot of the same stuff. He is the one the legend spoke of.”

That last line is from my “Curriculum Vitae” piece, and isn’t intended to sound as egotistical as it probably does. It’s a Dune reference.

I’m currently living off my savings and writing full-time. I’ve spent the past year pounding out my first novel. And it’s work, man. By far the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted. I’m currently revising the first draft.

No cats. I do have two beta fish, Tiga and Dyna, named after two of the most recent Ultramen to appear on Japanese TV.

EG: I know cats named Kodos and Tigra, so I cannot fault your pet naming. Let me ask you about your poetry, given that this is what people are most likely to know your name for these days.

EC: I should say that I hesitate to refer to my work as “poetry.” I think the term “spoken word” is a far more accurate description of my work, even thought a lot of it was written for “poetry slams.” I hope that makes some kind of sense.

EG: Perfect! I wasn’t sure poetry was the accurate term anyhow. How exactly does someone wake up one day and decide to write about Airwolf?

EC: That involved a night of bad 80s-era television followed by a screening of the film Koyaanisqatsi, which is an amazing film about humanity’s relationship with technology. To be honest, I’m not even a big fan of that show. I was using Airwolf as a kind of hybrid-metaphor for American materialism, idolatry, and our obsession with technology. And talking about some obscure nugget of pop culture with such reverence served to make my point. I think. Maybe.

EG: Yes. Possibly. I dunno. Was that even the first piece you wrote? Your CD, Ultraman is Airwolf, seems to be split between The Geek and The Everyman kind of stuff. Sometimes you’re talking pop culture and sometimes you’re talking about driving to work.

EC: “Pick Six” was the very first spoken word piece I wrote. I wrote it while stuck in traffic on the way to the tech support job I had at the time, right after I first moved to Austin.

EG: What was your intention when you got into writing spoken word?

EC: Well, I used to do stand-up comedy for awhile, but I think my material was a little too oblique for your average drunk comedy club audience. I was always a huge fan of Eric Bogosian and Bill Hicks, and that was the kind of work I wanted to emulate. As I said, my writing tends less toward poetry and more toward “short comedic monologues.” When I discovered poetry slams, they seemed like a perfect arena for that kind of thing.

EG: I know you’ve left the slam poetry arena, but recently it’s been in the news, as Canada’s Poet Laureate made some disparaging remarks about slam poetry competitions. He’s getting death threats from San Francisco poets and the like. What is it about slam poetry and spoken word that bugs the hell out of more academic poets?

EC: I don’t think that most academic poets believe that slam adheres to their traditional definition of “poetry,” so they’re probably offended that the term “poetry” is even applied to it. I agree, to some extent, which is why I don’t refer to my slam work as “poetry.”

But I also think that “poetry” is such a broad term that it can be applied to almost any kind of writing. Setting yourself up as the arbiter of what “is” and “is not” poetry is asking for trouble. I mean, what could be more terrifying than getting death threats from San Francisco slam poets?

EG: You’ve never written an article about a science fiction movie and gotten a fact wrong, have you? I don’t know if fanboy death threats are more terrifying than San Francisco slam poets, but it’s got a certain amount of horror going for it. Will Ernie Cline eventually achieve academic respect in time, just as something like beat poetry once did?

EC: Christ, I hope not. Academic respect was the never the goal of my slam writing. I just wanted to entertain people, and to share my writing with people that might dig it. The Internet has been a fantastic tool in that regard.

EG: You said you’ve put the poetry aside to focus on writing fiction — why? As in, why stop poetry, why start on fiction? Why the gear shift? You were two time champ and then you walked away — why, Rocky, why!?

EC: Actually writing fiction and screenplays was always my main focus. Spoken word was just something I did on the side, for fun. When I began work on my first novel, I wanted to focus all of my creative energy in that area. I think my writing had also outgrown the slam format.

EG: Speaking of screenplays, it’s time to need see Buckaroo. Did the BB2 script pre-date the poetry?

EC: Yes. I wrote that back in 1995, before I ever tried writing spoken word.

EG: Why write a script for Buckaroo Banzai 2? You cover everything from Dukes of Hazzard to Battlestar Galactica in your poetry, but BB must mean something special to you to compel you to write an entire script. And don’t think I didn’t notice the BB badges on your jacket on the back of your CD.

EC: I’ve always been a huge fan of that film. I think it’s one of the funniest, strangest, and most unique films ever to sneak its way out of Hollywood. I’d always hoped that the sequel would get made, but I knew it was a long shot. I figured that the only way I’d ever see a sequel was to write it myself.

I was also interested in screenwriting, and I thought that it would be a fun way to teach myself to write in that format.

EG: Was there any response to the script? At one point there was talk of a TV series — did no one point at you and go, “hey, this guy knows what time it is!”?

EC: I received a ton of positive e-mail from Banzai fans who had read and enjoyed my script, which was more than I’d really hoped for. It was also written-up in Sci-Fi World magazine and over at Corona Coming Attractions, which was really flattering, since it was just something I’d written for kicks.

I don’t think there was ever any chance of it actually getting produced, since I’m sure BB’s original creators would want to use their own script if a sequel ever got the greenlight. I hope WD Richter and Earl Mac Rauch get a chance to do a series or another film. I’d be the first in line to see it.

EG: Did you ever have the urge to pump out a Big Trouble in Little China 2 script?

EC: Writing one spec script with someone else’s characters was enough for me. But if the owners wanted to pay me to write the BTLC sequel, I’d be all over that job like hair on a gorilla.

EG: Geek or Nerd? And should you be King Geek/Nerd or are you happy as Nerd Auteur?

EC: I alternate, but I’d probably say Geek. It seems to have less of a negative stigma attached to it. I’d use “otaku” if I thought anyone would know what the hell I was talking about.

EG: Oh, this is Entertainment Geekly — I’m pretty sure everyone knows what you mean. For those of you who don’t, look it up. You’re at a computer for Pete’s sake, use it.

“When He Was A Kid” is the updated rant about how good the kids today have it. But on the other hand, couldn’t we pity the kids who grew up in the late 80s and early 90s — we had the Plastic Man cartoon and they had the Hammer Man cartoon. What else do we have as a generation that these kids today don’t?

EC: A reason to go outside. I’m actually pretty glad that I grew up in the 80s. If I’d had access to a PS2 or Everquest when I was a kid, I seriously doubt that I would’ve graduated high school.

EG: Where should people send you the nickel for every time they come up with a Geek Porn title? I owe you for Hawk the Playah by the way, though I think only British nerds will get that one.

EC: Are you kidding? That machine-gun crossbow is legendary where I come from.

EG: You’re my new hero, seriously. What are you up to now, what plans do the future hold? You mentioned a book.

EC: I’m finishing up my first book, and then I’ll probably start on the next one. Hopefully I can make enough scratch as a writer that I won’t have to go back to the Tech Support mines.

EG: You probably don’t want to go into details, but what can you tell us about it?

EC: I shouldn’t go into specifics, but I can tell you that it centers around a lot of the same themes as my spoken word writing: retro-sci-fi, geek-tech-80s-nostalgia, classic video games, giant robots . . . that kind of thing. Stay tuned.

EG: So it’s going to be like that? You tease…

EC: Hopefully, my first book will hit the shelves within a year or so. Stayed tuned to my website for updates on its publication.

EG: And what’s up with Fanboys, the movie?

EC: It’s been optioned and they’re presently doing casting. I’m told they plan to start shooting it this summer, with hopes of releasing it in late 2004, a few months before Episode III comes out. Nothing is ever certain in the movie business, though.

EG: Let me just say that Fanboys will have my business — Episode III is still a toss-up. Let me ask you something. My thinking is that pretty much everyone who contributes to the popular culture, or culture in general for that matter, is a fanboy of something. Guys like Stephen Spielberg grew up watching war movies and adventure serials, which pretty obviously influenced their work. Recently people have been commenting on the new generation of “fanboy” film directors, like Kevin Smith or the Wachowski Brothers. And it’s not just movies. I want to hear your thoughts on the idea of nerds who stop solely consuming pop culture and start producing it.

EC: I think it’s fantastic, and that there needs to be more of it. More geek-driven art! There’s nothing cooler to me than when a fan stops being just a fan and throws their own hat in the pop-culture ring. Kevin Smith, the Wachowskis, Tarantino — those guys grew up absorbing the non-stop flood of movies, animation, and comics — they took it in, amalgamated it all, put their own spin on it, and then produced something totally new, original, postmodern, and cool. When you get someone who knows what is cool in the driver’s seat, awesome things can happen. And I think geeks know what’s cool, even though that might sound like a contradiction in terms.

EG: OK, this was a given. Things that are Airwolf, to you, right now; Books?

EC: Anything written by Kurt Vonnegut.

EG: Me and Paul Lazardo approve. Games?

EC: I play the hell out of my classic MAME roms. Black Tiger and Heavy Barrel are old favorites.

I also like to download obscure Ultraman games that were only released for the Famicom in Japan, and then try to figure out to play them. I need help. Seriously.

EG: You’ve come to the wrong place, we’re all mad here. Comics?

EC: For my money, Evan Dorkin’s “Eltingville Comic Book, Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy and Role Playing Club” strips are pretty goddamn Airwolf.

EG: You know, I’ve yet to see the Cartoon Network Eltingville pilot. Speaking of which, TV?

EC: Sealab 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Both are pure genius. In the non-geek realm: HBO’s Six Feet Under is the best show in the history of television.

EG: If it’s on TV, it’s all geek to us. Music?

EC: Wound-up: Crystal Method. Unwound: Peter Gabriel.

EG: Movies?

EC: I’m a cinephile, man. I’d have to list about thirty films just to hit the tip of the iceberg.

EG: Hallelujah! DVD then?

EC: I finally picked up the Schoolhouse Rock 2 DVD set this past Christmas, and it’s rockin’ like Dokken. I put it into heavy rotation on Saturday mornings.

EG: Unpacking your adjectives is Airwolf. Toys?

EC: I’ve still got my old Atari 2600, complete with simulated woodgrain finish. Still the coolest toy I’ve ever owned.

EG: And as a cliché — but often amusing — standard wrap up for an interview, if you had the keys to the kingdom, what would you change? I don’t care if it’s world peace or banning cell phones in theaters, feel free to speak now.

EC: World peace would be ideal. To that end, I’d yank that befuddled moron Bush Jr. out of the White House and give him a job more suited to his particular skill set, like, say, swabbing out the crapper at an Arby’s. Then I’d replace him with Noam Chomsky, round up all of the right-wing misogynist pro-life goose-stepping fascists, and put them all in re-education camps where they could learn how to love and feel empathy.

I’d also bring back Quisp cereal.