It might not come as a terrible shock to discover that I’m a big Kevin Smith fan. Seen all his movies, from Clerks to Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Read all the comics. Read the books. Even read the scriptbooks of the movies. Bought his three live DVDs. Seen him in person several times, met him at MegaCon, watched him answer questions for 6 hours at a screenwriting seminar. Followed his blog and his Twitter feed.
And he’ll talk about anything. No topic is too personal, every aspect of his life gets put out there for everyone to see.
So by now you’d think I’d have a pretty good handle on what he was like in person, right?
I came in late to the SModcast, the weekly podcast Smith records with his longtime friend and producer Scott Mosier, mostly because I never listened to podcasts of any kind until fairly recently and besides, I’d heard all his stories, right? But I got a better car stereo, and an iPod Touch, and I started working out and needed something to distract me from the unpleasant chore of making my body move around, and so when I did look for podcasts his was the first I grabbed. And I learned two valuable lessons.
First, the polished storyteller Kevin I saw on stage telling oft-told tales of Hollywood with the confident ease of long practice did not prepare me for the giggling Kev spinning wild and almost unspeakably deviant fantasies which he then hilariously acts out, with Mosier and other familiar View Askew faces like Walt Flanagan, Bryan Johnson and Malcolm Ingram. His remarkably tolerant wife Jen and daughter Harley even make appearances. Smith is more than a little like his character Randall in the way he pushes and pushes at a situation, making it worse and worse until you finally give in, whereupon he makes it worse.
Second, it’s a really bad idea to be holding a lot of weight over your head at the Y when Kevin starts doing Harry Potter’s voice, explaining to a panicky Ron that screaming “Forgeticus!” after fumbling with a half-awake Harry under the covers in the Hogwarts dorms really doesn’t work. (Mosier: It’s called “being on the down low, Ron”) Nor will the average elderly Y-goer understand why you’re trying desperately not to lose it as “Harry” tells Hermione to try gulping some gillyweed before oral sex to hold her breath longer.
This is Kevin Smith at his most raw, when he’s coming up with ideas right there in the company of the people who make him laugh. And his new book, “Shootin’ the Sh*t With Kevin Smith: The Best of SModcast,” on sale tomorrow, is a transcript of some of the best segments. You do lose some of the impact without the sound effects, the fake voices and the background music, but it’s still funny and utterly wrong as hell.
Did Helen Keller have a sex life? Did Smith recently have sex with his wife’s leg? How long would Smith and Mosier last on the Lost island before they started looking good to each other? Would Scott Mosier perform a sexual act on a dying fan, at the fan’s request? What if the Make-A-Wish Foundation forced him to do it? What’s up with the Godzilla Jesus movie, or Stalin’s monkey soldier army, or bukkake eggs, or why Kevin was willing to let Alanis Morrisette get mugged.
In his previous book, New York Times bestseller “My Boring Ass Life,” Smith gave us a peek into his life. This time he lets us into his brain.You might want to wear waders, but don’t miss the trip.
Get it from Amazon, or order a signed one from Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, or take a shot at winning a free copy in my “Which Kevin Smith Character Would You Nail?” contest.
NSFW excerpt after the jump:
From SModcast number 45
Lost and Bukkake EggsKS: If we were in Lost, and there was nobody else…
SM: On the show, or if we were actually trapped on the island?
KS: It’s like Lost, but the plane that went down, we were the only two survivors.
SM: Okay, so we’re stranded on an island.
KS: We’re stranded on an island. That island. But there’s only two of us, so the Others don’t bother with us, they’re not a threat or anything like that.
SM: They just watch, and snicker.
KS: Yeah, they’re just like, “Let’s watch and see how long it takes for these two to fuck.” If we were lost on the desert island, and, how long have they been lost? At least half a year, in TV time?
SM: Something like that, yeah.
KS: Like, in real time, it’s been three, four seasons, but I think it’s only like…
SM: I thought it was like a hundred and ten days.
KS: Something like that. Um… We’re on the island with no hope of… we don’t know if we’re ever gonna get rescued, we don’t even have hope like these fuckers, like every once in a while they find a plane or some such shit…
SM: Yeah. What, we never leave the beach?
KS: Yeah, we’re always just like, “Let’s stay here!” Or you’re like, “Let’s go hiking!” and I’m like, “Fuck that, let’s stay here in case somebody comes. Plus, hiking sucks.” So, we’re just living on the beach and shit, and maybe every once in a while you go out and run into a polar bear, and you’re like, “There’s a fucking polar bear on the island!” And I’m like, “I told you you should stay on the beach!”
SM: I mean, I don’t think I’d be doing recreational things. It would be more like, “I’m gonna go try to get us some food.”
KS: I’m like, “Alright, I’m down with that.”
SM: If I ended up on an island, I might introduce the idea of like, “I should hike to a vantage point, where we can see most of the island, ’cause maybe there’s something, anything on there, as opposed to staying on one beach; two, I would hike into the interior to try to find food. You would have to deal with fish.
KS: Like, catching them?
SM: Yeah, but also eating them.
KS: Yeah, that’d be tough for me. I mean, I guess if you’re hungry you’d fucking do it.
SM: We’d have to create fire. I would actually, there would be a part of me that would be like… I love the idea of us standing around, trying to figure out when we’re going to fuck each other.
KS: That’s what I’m talking about. How long would it be before we were like, “Alright, we’re gonna…” Well, first off, let’s take it to the first level. Do you jerk off on the island?
SM: Sure.
KS: Do you do it privately? Do you do it while I’m sleeping?
SM: Uh…
KS: Or are you like, “I’m going on a hike,” and it’s like a three minute hike and you’re like, “I’m back!”
SM: I’m just behind a tree, five feet away, you can see me…
KS: Finding a knot on a fucking palm tree and shit, drilling it… You do jerk off? Do you jerk off in the ocean, underwater, or is that like, salt water on your dick?
SM: Um…. Maybe I would do it there. I don’t know where I would do it. I think that there would be… initially, my thing would be food and shelter.
KS: Right.
SM: And I would think I would use masturbation as more of just a…
KS: Tension reliever?
SM: Yeah, like, you know, after a long day. I mean, it’s pitch dark, it’s not like there’s lots of light.
KS: It’s true.
SM: I could be in the same room, and you wouldn’t see it.
KS: Yeah, I’m like, “What is that noise?” “Nothing. Go back to sleep.” “I’m not sleeping.” “Just — you didn’t hear nothing.”
SM: “You don’t see nothing, you don’t hear nothing.”
KS: “Get lost.” I’m like, “We are lost!”
SM: I’d probably do it in private.
KS: Mmm. How long… how many years do you think it’s before you’re like, “Let’s fuck.” Or, do you ever get to that point, or is it too weird? You’re like, “We’re too…I don’t want to ruin the friendship.”
SM: It would be a strange… I think it would have to be something that you would have to experience. On the outset, I would be like…
KS: “Never!”
SM:Well, it wouldn’t occur to me that… like, at this point… I think you would have to go through the experience, because at this point off the top of my head, my initial reaction is that one, I would think about surviving…
KS: Right.
SM: And getting rescued. Not to avoid fucking you.
KS: Right, right. I mean, I’m starting to get a little hurt, my feelings are hurt.
SM: I’m just sending out all these messages, “Please rescue me so we don’t have to fuck…”
KS: “I’m within a month of fucking this fat pig and I don’t wanna do it. Please, help us get unlost.”