This is part three in the ongoing adventures of Owen Miller, renowned erotic pottery sculptor and bedazzler, famed geologist, lover of cats, and Papa John’s pizza lover. Recently, Owen’s been the focus of attention because he painted his Cadillac like the Peruvian flag, and hauled it with a convoy of photographers, filmographers, videographers, and mechanics over the Andes to the Oxapampa film festival. Along the way, a reporter from Caretas happened to see Owen, and offered the ragin’ Scotsman his card with the promise of “doing a story on him or something.”

Last Sunday, Owen’s incomprehensible voice came crackling through the other end of my cell phone, and I assumed he wanted me to come over. Upon arriving at Owen’s house, I found that both the Cadillac and the Mercedes resplendent with the Peruvian coat of arms were completely blocking traffic outside of Owen’s house. It turns out that Caretas had made good on their promise to pay some attention to Owen, and, to offset the fact that Owen would be in the pictures, they hired what Owen called, “a Russian Bikini model” to also be photographed.

So, we loaded up all the vehicles with the camera people that have started perpetually occupying Owen’s space, and I climbed into the back where I was squeezed in between the seven hats and suit jackets that Owen brought for the occasion. We parked outside the house of the Russian model and her mom at 5 o’clock on the dot, but of course, this being Peru, neither the journalists from Caretas or the models were in sight.

The clock ticked, and Owen’s personal video guy started to become nervous because the light was dropping fast and he wasn’t going to be able to film Owen sitting in his car, which would have been a tragedy for all humanity akin to the loss of the library at Alexandria. But, eventually, the reporters arrived, and then the Russian model came trotting out of the house along with her mother.

It was at that point that I realized I must be getting old, because the first thought that ran through my mind was, “She must be cold.” She was wearing a black dress and heels, not a swim suit, but still, there wasn’t a lot of fabric there. So, they loaded the model into the car, and Owen jumped in the front seat, and the photographer climbed to the top of the building to get some shots of Owen and the girl, all while Owen’s personal video guy walked around the car with his camera, filming the whole thing for posterity.

“What are you doing here,” the journalist guy from Caretas asked. “I just came to make sure you mention that Owen’s an erotic pottery sculptor in the article.” I said. The guy didn’t know whether or not to believe me, I left it at that.

So, after the first round of photographs, the Russian model teetered back upstairs (she was on pretty massive heels), and we decided to go out to the park overlooking the ocean to get some more scenic shots. Well, despite the fact that we had two massive vehicles, there weren’t enough seats, so I ended up in a taxi with the Caretas journalist, the model’s mom, and the Careta’s photographer. The mom seemed nervous about leaving the girl alone with Owen for even six seconds, and I didn’t blame her. She mentioned she was from St. Petersberg and had been living in Lima for 7 years, so I figured she could probably handle herself.

We drove out to the park, and Owen had a place all picked out to drive his cars. There is a circular concrete platform in the center of the park that seems like it was made for people to park their Peruvian flag painted Cadillacs and Mercedes for moments of public adulation. However, at this moment, there was a dance troupe practicing a routine there, and the access was blocked by a motorcycle.

“Help me move this motorcycle out of the way,” Owen screamed at me. But I long ago gave up lifting heavy objects for any amount of money, so I just stood there pretending I couldn’t hear Owen/couldn’t understand him, and finally he gave up and found somebody else to order around—but that guy, too, refused to help assault the innocent motorcycle of whatever completely innocent person had parked it there, so Owen eventually just drove his car down to the end of the park, found a new access point, and off-roaded it to the circular platform.

By then, the guy driving the Mercedes concluded he could sneak by the motorcycle, and he joined Owen on the concrete stage, the two Peruvian flag painted vehicles offset from one another to emphasize the raw awesomeness of the moment.

Once again there was a flurry of activity as the various cameramen ran around, and Owen swatted away the kind of irritated looking dance troupe, and the Russian model stood around looking for a place to sprawl herself, and the mother gazed on not really understanding what was happening. The journalist and I just watched it and laughed, and kind of kept our eyes out for the cops so we could walk away pretending we had nothing to do with the proceedings if necessary.

So, there were a few pictures of just the Russian bikini model, and then Owen started getting into the pictures, and before you knew it, Owen was asking the model to kind of hide in the back seat so that he could get some pictures “just with him.” By the end of the photo shoot, the model was standing off to the side with her mom, and we were all watching Owen sprawl on the car, and make faces, and try on his several hats.

Surprisingly, the cops never came, and we were able to return back to the home of the Russian model, where Owen made everybody watch the video that already exists of him going to Oxapampa with the Cadillac. I still haven’t seen the issue of Caretas, but it will be interesting to see whether or not the photos of Owen made it into the magazine, or if those were cut out in favor of the Russian model pics. My bet is on the later.

Interestingly enough, that was just the start of the day because after that we went to Molly’s tavern on Berlin where Owen performed a set of stand-up comedy and then racked up a huge tab before realizing his credit card wasn’t working. That’s when I left, so I don’t know what happened after that.

Update: Here’s the article in Caretas, kind of a lot of sound and fury for just two paragraphs, my article is better.