We went to the SModcastle.<\/p>\n
It’s the filters that kill me.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, that intestinal process in Hollywood where what goes in one end resembles not a whit what comes out the other.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s always some jerk-off insisting that a scene be changed so that someone in a faraway land will like the movie.\u00c2\u00a0 And all the truth, all the heart, all the reality is stripped from the original concoction.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Like in "Chasing Amy".<\/p>\n
There’s this scene, where Silent Bob finally talks.\u00c2\u00a0 Tells a tale about a woman he was once involved with.\u00c2\u00a0 He elicited her previous sexual history.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, that’s part of every relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 Any way it goes, it sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 Either she was wilder than you or tamer but you feel uptight nonetheless.\u00c2\u00a0 Guys are bad with this.\u00c2\u00a0 We want to feel macho yet miniscule at the same time.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 We make up an excuse and break up with you.\u00c2\u00a0 Because we can’t tolerate the conflicted feelings inside. Then we spend our whole lives chasing Amy. <\/p>\n
That’s the girl Silent Bob let get away.<\/p>\n
Every guy’s got an Amy.\u00c2\u00a0 It may not even be a woman.\u00c2\u00a0 But a job, a situation he fucked up because he was immature.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants another chance.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s haunted by Amy.\u00c2\u00a0 He goes to sleep with Amy on his mind.\u00c2\u00a0 What if he hadn’t been such a hothead, what if he’d played it differently?<\/p>\n
But there aren’t any do-overs in life.\u00c2\u00a0 And what’s gone is usually gone for good.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
I knew Kevin Smith played Carnegie Hall.\u00c2\u00a0 I was surprised you could pay twenty five bucks and see him in an intimate venue in Hollywood with less than a hundred fans.<\/p>\n
It was him.\u00c2\u00a0 In his hockey jersey.\u00c2\u00a0 And Jay, Jason Mewes, from all those movies they did together.\u00c2\u00a0 Ostensibly it was a podcast, but really, it was the story of their lives.<\/p>\n
And Jason Mewes has got stories you can’t make up.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching his brother fuck a woman while he beats off.\u00c2\u00a0 Screwing this same older woman years later.\u00c2\u00a0 Never knowing his father.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 His brother’s living in North Carolina, as a racist and a homophobe.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re related, yet so different.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, they all had different fathers.<\/p>\n
But as interesting as Jason’s tales were, it was the ones told by Kevin that truly resonated.\u00c2\u00a0 Because he grew up in a middle class suburban household just like me, just like so many of us.<\/p>\n
He talked about this fight his parents had on Christmas.\u00c2\u00a0 His dad wanted to allow his uncle to come over, even though it was now bedtime.\u00c2\u00a0 To his wife, Kevin’s mother, he ultimately said "Blood is thicker than water."\u00c2\u00a0 And Kevin’s mom put her fist through the wall.\u00c2\u00a0 A feat that Keven was ultimately unable to duplicate.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the kids were all downstairs in the living room mortified while this was going on.\u00c2\u00a0 My parents fought.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember huddling with my sisters debating whether they were going to get a divorce.\u00c2\u00a0 They never did.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why when you marry me, it’s forever, unless you leave me first.<\/p>\n
Kevin’s older brother is gay.\u00c2\u00a0 He and Jay discussed when Kevin found out.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
It’s normalcy that gets to us.\u00c2\u00a0 Because normal is so abnormal.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Who can identify with a beautiful twit who’s been enhanced by plastic surgery singing a song about winning written by middle aged men?\u00c2\u00a0 Or, as John Lennon sang, gimme some truth.\u00c2\u00a0 All we want is the truth.<\/p>\n
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.\u00c2\u00a0 The words chosen, the questions asked, it was like living in a movie.\u00c2\u00a0 A very blue movie.<\/p>\n
That’s the secret.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Ultimately you’ll be able to listen to tonight’s show as a podcast.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re a fan of these guys, I urge you to go down to Santa Monica Boulevard and experience it live.\u00c2\u00a0 The gap disappears, you feel part of something real.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s thrilling.<\/p>\n
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