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Excerpt from an Interview with comedian Bill Engvall, featured in Dad's Magazine premiere issue.
DM: Tell me about some of the funny comedy clubs you worked during the comedy boom.
BE: The Improv in Chicago. Here's one of my favorite memories…… It was the middle of winter, just freezing cold, wind blowing thirty miles an hour and the club would never pick us up so we had to walk to the club. I'm walking to the club, freezing my rear end off and this guy comes up to me and says, "Hey, do you want to buy a gold chain?" I'm thinking, sell earmuffs or something, don't sell me something that's going to freeze to my skin!
DM: Tell me more things stupid people do.
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BE: I've gotta tell you something, I will always have material, because people do idiotic things. I was flying to Nashville on a direct flight from LA to Nashville. There's no stops. The guy sitting next to me says, "You going to Nashville?" I said, "No, Dallas; I'll be parachuting out in about an hour." That's what we ought to do, we ought to carry around signs that say, "I'm Stupid". That way, you wouldn't rely on them. You wouldn't see them coming. The thing that's great about it is, it is not indigenous to one area. It's all over the country.
DM: Unlike Jeff Foxworthy, where you've got to be a red neck to be stupid, this is everybody is stupid.
BE: Here in Beverly Hills we've been having a porch put on the back of our house. Three days there has been a concrete truck parked in our front yard. My neighbor comes over and he says, "Pouring concrete?". "No, I'm making big ol' margaritas, you decide." Unfortunately, nobody is immune, not even me. I came out of the mall the other day with my son. There is a guy standing right next to me with a coat hanger in his window. I could not stop myself. I said, "Lock your keys in your car?" He looked at me and said, "No, just washed it, gunna hang it up to dry!"
DM: How old are your kids?
BE: I have a thirteen year old girl and an eight year old boy.
DM: Which is easier?
BE: The thirteen year old was for awhile, until she hit thirteen. They're both great kids, but the thirteen year old is just hitting that teenager thing where you get that thing where she doesn't have parents anymore, we're just her driver. I did figure out a way you can discipline a teenager without spanking them or yelling at them. In front of their school. They just freak. When you are in front of their school it's like you're a leper or something. My son is just a boy. It was funny because we got the call, the first time we got called into the principals office. He had hit another kid. I went in there and he's sitting there looking like he's getting the death sentence. I said, "Did you hit this kid?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Did he hit you first?" He said, "No." I said, "Why did you hit him?" He said, " I thought he was lying to me." I said, "What are you, the Deniro of the playground?"
DM: I find that it's easier for dads to relate to their sons because of that whole female logic thing.
BE: You're exactly right. When my daughter was young, like in single digits, WE had that relationship. But as she started to get older. She became a woman. She can give you a look like you're the dumbest person on the planet. I know this, because women can do that.
DM: What kind of things do you do with your kids activity wise?
BE: Play baseball with my son. We swim a lot. I like fishing and just taking hikes. My daughter, we go shopping. It's weird when you are walking with your daughter and she says she needs to stop and buy a bra. I'm like, no, no, no!
DM: I need words to live by from Bill Engvall.
BE: Enjoy your kids and don't take yourself to seriously.
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