Jay & Silent Bob Live
We went to the SModcastle.
It’s the filters that kill me. You know, that intestinal process in Hollywood where what goes in one end resembles not a whit what comes out the other. There’s always some jerk-off insisting that a scene be changed so that someone in a faraway land will like the movie. And all the truth, all the heart, all the reality is stripped from the original concoction. But when something eludes these filters, when an artist gets it right and I get to experience it I wear a grin ten miles wide, I feel alive, I want to tell everybody I know about this most private of moments when I was in touch with the zeitgeist, when I not only saw my humanity but felt part of the collective consciousness.
Like in "Chasing Amy".
There’s this scene, where Silent Bob finally talks. Tells a tale about a woman he was once involved with. He elicited her previous sexual history. Hell, that’s part of every relationship. Any way it goes, it sucks. Either she was wilder than you or tamer but you feel uptight nonetheless. Guys are bad with this. We want to feel macho yet miniscule at the same time. We want to be your man, but we also want to regale you with tales of our Lionel train sets, sports stars of yore, we want the ability to be little boys, and if you’ve fucked more people than we have we feel inadequate and can’t reveal our softer side and there you have the death of a relationship. We make up an excuse and break up with you. Because we can’t tolerate the conflicted feelings inside. Then we spend our whole lives chasing Amy.
That’s the girl Silent Bob let get away.
Every guy’s got an Amy. It may not even be a woman. But a job, a situation he fucked up because he was immature. He wants another chance. He’s haunted by Amy. He goes to sleep with Amy on his mind. What if he hadn’t been such a hothead, what if he’d played it differently?
But there aren’t any do-overs in life. And what’s gone is usually gone for good. But you end up with a story, which you whip out with your buddies, when it’s late at night and you’ve had a few and you let your guard down.
I knew Kevin Smith played Carnegie Hall. I was surprised you could pay twenty five bucks and see him in an intimate venue in Hollywood with less than a hundred fans.
It was him. In his hockey jersey. And Jay, Jason Mewes, from all those movies they did together. Ostensibly it was a podcast, but really, it was the story of their lives.
And Jason Mewes has got stories you can’t make up. Watching his brother fuck a woman while he beats off. Screwing this same older woman years later. Never knowing his father. Being raised by his grandmother who turned out to be his great aunt. His sister’s got seven kids, each and every one of them taken away by the state. His brother’s living in North Carolina, as a racist and a homophobe. You’re related, yet so different. Then again, they all had different fathers.
But as interesting as Jason’s tales were, it was the ones told by Kevin that truly resonated. Because he grew up in a middle class suburban household just like me, just like so many of us.
He talked about this fight his parents had on Christmas. His dad wanted to allow his uncle to come over, even though it was now bedtime. To his wife, Kevin’s mother, he ultimately said "Blood is thicker than water." And Kevin’s mom put her fist through the wall. A feat that Keven was ultimately unable to duplicate.
Meanwhile, the kids were all downstairs in the living room mortified while this was going on. My parents fought. I remember huddling with my sisters debating whether they were going to get a divorce. They never did. Which is why when you marry me, it’s forever, unless you leave me first.
Kevin’s older brother is gay. He and Jay discussed when Kevin found out. But even more interesting was when Kevin finally started to bring home girls, his parents encouraged fucking, they wanted to cover up what had come before.
It’s normalcy that gets to us. Because normal is so abnormal. It’s the little things that resonate, it’s the quirks that we remember. Sanitized entertainment can be interesting as a train-wreck, but we can’t identify. Who can identify with a beautiful twit who’s been enhanced by plastic surgery singing a song about winning written by middle aged men? Or, as John Lennon sang, gimme some truth. All we want is the truth.
It was just like sitting down for a conversation with your buddies except these were professionals, you could see Kevin’s screenwriting mind at work. The words chosen, the questions asked, it was like living in a movie. A very blue movie.
That’s the secret. Both males and females talk about sex and relationships and are raunchy in a way you never see portrayed. Howard Stern is a voyeur, Kevin and Jason were telling their own stories, they were in it together and we were getting a sneak peek.
Ultimately you’ll be able to listen to tonight’s show as a podcast. But if you’re a fan of these guys, I urge you to go down to Santa Monica Boulevard and experience it live. The gap disappears, you feel part of something real. It’s thrilling.
