My Boring-Ass Life (Revised Edition): The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith (3 page)

Gail moves up two phoners I’m supposed to do with McHenry area papers so that I can do the Harvey lunch. Both interviews are meant to pimp the Raue Theater screening. Both seemingly go well.

I jump in the shower, get dressed, and head to the office to pick up Mos for the lunch. As we jet across to Beverly Hills and meet with Jon Gordon (our friend and Miramax exec) and Harvey at Harvey’s hotel, I call Zach Braff’s cell. Surprisingly, he answers on the second ring. The convo goes something like this...

“Zach Braff?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Kevin Smith.”

Beat.

“Kevin Smith?! No way!”

“Hello, sir.”

“This isn’t really Kevin Smith.”

“It is. And I’m charmed by the fact that you answer your phone, sir. Are you working on
Scrubs
at the moment?”

“I am. We’re between takes. Kevin Smith. This is awesome.”

“So can we get together and chat about
Fletch Won
?”

“So the rumors are true?”

“They are, sir.”

“Oh God, yes. I must have been really impressive in that PSA.”

“I told you then I enjoyed working with you. What’s your schedule look like?”

“I’m wrapping
Scrubs
on April 9th. After that, I’ll have more time to meet up and stuff.”

“So you wanna wait ‘til sometime after the ninth?”

“I do. But I need your address. I want you to come to my birthday party.”

“Right on. When is it?”

“Like April [DATE GIVEN].”

“I’ll definitely be in town.”

“Where can we send something?”

“Written invite or email.”

“Written.”

“Send it to [ADDRESS GIVEN].”

“Cool.”

“So you wanna wait ‘til sometime after April 9th to meet, right? Did my number come up on your cell.”

“It did.”

“Then just call that when you’re ready to hook up.”

“I will. They’re calling me to set right now.”

“Later, sir.”

“Bye.”

We get to the hotel and head upstairs with Jon to meet with the big man (or rather, not-so-big-man — Harvey’s lost a shitload of weight) in his suite. He opts to head downstairs for a lunch meeting with us instead.

We go over
Clerks 2
-related business (turns out
The Passion of the Clerks
will hold the honor of being the first film put into production at New Co., the temporary moniker of Miramax v.2), as well as Harvey’s feelings about Chapter Two of his epic career: the post-Disney Miramax v.2. He says he’s nervous and excited. I ask why he’s nervous and he says that it sucks to leave behind the 800-movie library and the name they spent two decades building. I say: “There’s more than enough time to build another 800-movie library and a new name — however, this time, make only the good movies.” To this, Harvey smiles and says, “Which means you’ll never make another movie again.” I love this man.

We talk about Zach Braff and
Fletch Won
(a combo Harvey loves) and then go over a list of possible Beckys (the female lead in
Clerks 2
). Harvey keeps pushing Amanda Peet who I agree is great but also know, in my heart, will never do this flick. I also think it’s better to go with an actress who’s less well known. We narrow the list down to a few names before Harvey gives me a peck on the top of the head and pimps off for another meeting. Scott, Jon and I sit around the restaurant for another forty-five minutes going over stuff and waxing rhapsodic about
The Talented Mister Ripley
before we have to head back to work.

At the office, Colleen Benn and Meredith Sachs from Universal Home Video are waiting to go over the
Mallrats
10th DVD. I tell them I’ll be ready to deliver the re-cut of the movie by mid-April. Phil Benson joins us, and we all go over what will be included on this two-DVD set. Thus far, we’ve got all the contents of the OG DVD, as well as the re-cut, the new documentary (in which we’re gonna talk to everyone this time), the new commentary track, the 10th Anniversary Q&A we’re gonna round the cast up for and shoot at the Arclight (in the coming months; not at Vulgarthon), storyboards, every draft of the script, tons of press, possibly the MTV Première Party special — just a bunch of stuff to make the double-dip worth the price. Smalls loads them up with a box of press, tapes, artwork. I even unearth my production binder, which has all the multi-colored schedules, one-liners, and drafts of the flick, complete with notes I wrote in the margins. I’m so glad I’m such a pack-rat; I save everything. Colleen says the street date for
Rats
will probably be in mid-September. Phil and I push hard for them to do a Region 2, but these ladies have no control over that; that’s up to UPI — the overseas arm of Universal — and they’re mainly into releasing the blockbusters. So if you’re Region 2 and you want this new
Rats
DVD, best to start bugging UPI Home Video now.

During lunch, Jon Gordon reminded me of a shot from
Jersey Girl
that I’d forgotten to put back into the movie. I’d called Phil to ask him to slug it in. Now, Phil’s showing it to me. I futz with it a little bit (move the sound, shave off the back half of the shot and lay a fade on that motherfucker) and with that, lock the version of
Jersey Girl
we’ll be showing on Monday. It’s about two hours and twenty-five minutes long, and based on the patchwork nature of it we’ll be projecting a BetaCam copy onto the Dome screen that day. It won’t be as lush to look at as a film print, but it’ll get the job done.

From there, it’s over to Phil’s office for a brief tutorial on Final Cut Pro. I’ve never used FCP before (I’ve been an Avid guy since ‘96), so Phil hits me with the basics of removing chunks of media from a project, which is all I’ll need to hack into
Oh, What a Lovely Tea Party
.

Tea Party
is just too long to show at Vulgarthon in its present running time of three hours and forty-five minutes. For home viewing, sure — a VA enthusiast can watch it in a sitting or start and stop the flick according to their schedule. But at the tail-end of a looooooooooooong day of watching movies, the far-from-’Snowball Effect’-tight/fly-on-the-wall-format of the nearly four-hour
Tea Party
might put motherfuckers to sleep. For that reason, and because we just don’t have enough time to fit the monster version into our already-packed ‘Thon schedule, Malcolm and I sit down and start the lugubrious task of finding an hour and forty-five minutes to hack out.

It turns out to be not as lugubrious as we thought. By midnight, we’ve tamed the beast into a hair over two hours without any really painful edits. Turns out there was a bunch of fat (mostly of behind-the-scenes angles of various scenes) that just slowly fell away like the pounds on Atkins. Midway through the cut, Malcolm and I are joined by Christian (Xtian to you folks) who is in town for Vulgarthon. Jen swings your beloved Mod, Endless and their two kids by the office before whisking the girls up to the house. The men are left to do the heavy lifting; the heavy lifting of sitting crammed behind a desk and pressing keys on a Mac keyboard.

We call it a night twenty minutes from the end of the doc, and head up to the house. Harley and Gabrielle are already out cold in Harley’s barn bed (a bunkbed shaped/designed to look like, you guessed it, a barn), so Team Case opts to leave her here for the night and Malcolm and I take the remnants of their broken family back to the hotel. We gas up the truck on the way home.

Jen’s out cold when I get home, so I jump online to check email. As I fall asleep in the process of doing so, I realize it’s time to call it a night. I fall asleep watching TiVo’ed
Simpsons
.

Friday 25 March 2005 @ 12:08 p.m.

The dogs play it cool — it’s the kids that wake my ass up at 7:30 a.m. Dressed in full princess regalia Harley and Gabrielle start banging on the door. Jen lets the dogs out, and I stumble to the bathroom with the computer to play catch-up with the diary-thing. I run out of battery juice in ten minutes, so I head back to the bedroom, sack out on the floor, and finish my entry.

Malcolm joins us (after being serenaded awake by Harley and Gabrielle doing their rendition of ‘Good Morning, to You’), and we decide to take the girls to breakfast at Jerry’s while Jen heads to the doctor’s. I shower and we’re off.

On the drive to Jerry’s, we call Xtian and Endless to see if they’re up for breakfast. They’ve already eaten, so me and Malcolm are on our own with the kids. I’d set my babysitting rate to be in line with my college-speaking rate, but Team Case’s eldest is one of those rare good kids, who’s low-maintenance and easy to be around (but, fuck does she love Sweet & Low).

After breakfast, we head over to the store so I can sign up the remaining 100 or so
Wizard
World Kevin Smith exclusive figures (we sent a few cases back east for the Red Bank Stash so there’ll be some in stock post-Basie gig). Dave and I try to figure out what’s creating this nauseating buzz in one of the lights at the back of the store and ultimately figure it’s best left to an electrician. Malcolm keeps an eye on the kids while I re-stock the shelves and sign some bobble-heads and
Strike Back
figures. I buy two cases of Kevin figures for family and stuff, and we’re off.

Jen calls and asks me to pick up a gift for Harley’s friend whose birthday the girls are meant to attend that afternoon. We head across the street to Aaaah’s and pick up some
SpongeBob
and Wonder Woman gear. I stumble across a few of those old school video games that consist of the games built into the joystick (the scrolling games that plug right into the back of your TV and run on batteries), including (to my utter joy) an EA Sports NHL ‘95 game. Malcolm finds an “I
Fucked Paris Hilton” t-shirt which we think (for twenty seconds) would be funny to give to Mewes (who starts shooting a movie with the fuckee in question on Tuesday), then move on.

On the ride home, [Jason] Lee calls to confirm he’ll be rockin’ the V’thon
Amy
Q&A mic (there was a question as to whether or not he was gonna be in town, but like a champ, he came through). We chit-chat the whole ride home (he’s loving his TV show [
My Name is Earl
]) and he wraps it up by busting some Syndrome to Harley.

We get home and find Team Case chilling with Jen. I head into my office to do a phoner with the Bergen Record (to promote the Count Basie gig) and a phoner with
Entertainment Weekly
(to suck Criterion’s cock; finally, Criterion’s getting some mainstream ink). After that, we head to The Ivy for a late lunch.

Malcolm made the reservation at the wrong Ivy, so we stand there, displaced for a moment in the packed restaurant, at a loss. The Ivy kindly gets us in ASAP regardless. We’re seven for lunch: me, Jen, Malcolm, Chay, Trish, Cookie (Mos’s girlfriend), Xtian and Endless. I spend most of the lunch jawing with Trish about her new boyfriend.

We head home and after a moment of panic in which Gabrielle’s ‘Little Baby’ (a small stuffed cow) has gone missing, shit’s made right and I drop Team Case back at the hotel.

With Harley doing ‘Movie Night’ down in Gail and Byron’s room, Jen and I settle into some of the first peace and quiet we’ve had since the anniversary. We rock a little
Without a Trace
, which, years later, still holds up. It’s certainly as farfetched as a child abduction movie can be (it makes
Ransom
look plausible), but totally watchable. I’m checking email through most of the flick, and then close up shop as we settle into that Robin Williams flick
The Final Cut
. It requires a degree more attention than we have to give at that point, as we’re both kinda tired. We switch over to TiVo and fall asleep to some
Simpsons
eps.

Saturday 26 March 2005 @ 12:08 p.m.

Fucking dogs get me up at 5:45, but thankfully, Mewes is lingering about upstairs. I let the dogs out of my room (figuring Mewes’ll let ’em out upstairs), take a leak, and go back to bed.

Rise from a bad dream at about 8:10, and throw on some clothes so I can get Xtian to the Stash. Once there, X, Bob and Gina put together the pickup bags (shirt, tip sheet, VA Almanac, comic), and I sign 500 copies of
Silent Bob Speaks
. After some last minute rearrangement of the shelves, I’m out of there (joint opens at eleven, there’s already a small crowd outside, and since I look like I slept in my clothes in the back of a car, I’m not in the mood to take pics and stuff).

I swing by the house, pick up Malcolm, and head to the office. Phil and I shift some of the
Jersey Girl
credits around on the Avid, render ’em, and Phil’s off and running with the BetaCam output. I head over to Phil’s office to finish off
Tea Party
and since Phil’s taught me a few more tricks to Final Cut, I go back to the head of the flick to do a fine cut, whipping that motherfucker into a lean, tight (yet still oddly loose) one-hour forty-seven. I’m behind that desk from 12:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

Along the way, my Canadian homey Jim Jackman (of
Degrassi
production fame) arrives, and after some initial histrionics from Malcolm (of the “There can be only one!” variety), all three of us mellow out with not one, not two, but three spliffs. Amazingly, I’m still able to edit (albeit more c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y, maaaaaaannn...). We order some food (natch) and it’s about the best food I’ve tasted in what feels like eons (everything tastes better when you’re baked — even when it’s just a bun-less cheeseburger and some chicken skewers). We spend a long time laughing about shit which probably wasn’t really all that funny, but fuck, I’m like crying at the time, unable to breathe. I don’t spark up very regularly, but when I do a) it’s usually with Malcolm, and b) it’s usually an excellent time.

We drive home (s-l-o-w-l-y, maaaaaaaaannnnn...), making a pit stop at McDonald’s for more chicken and beef. I get home and scarf two Atkins S’mores bars (because the first one tasted better than it usually does, somehow...) and climb into bed beside the slumbering Schwalbach. I’m out in less than a minute.