E531 Kevin Smith

28:11So the only people I had to talk - So they had to get you on the table immediately. As soon as I got to the, they took me, picked me up from an ambulance from the Alex Theater in Glendale, and took me, they're supposed to take me to a closer hospital as per the shoot schedule, like whenever you shoot a thing, there's like, this is where you gotta go if somebody gets hurt. That hospital was closer, but the first responders, the medics, picked me up. Motherfuckers saved my life, I don't even know their names. I gotta figure, you know what, I gotta go out and find their names. Yeah. These two kids came in backstage, the Alex theater, and they were trying to put leads on me and shit.

28:44What's leads? You know, like the on your on your chest so they can measure your heart rate or whatever the fuck. So I was wearing a hockey jersey. And again, I was way heavier and shit. And they lift up my shirt. I'm like, wow, man, fucking you never do that to a fucking heavy dude. What are you talking about? We got to get these on. I was like, well, fucking I'll hold it out. You reach under. But there's too many fucking people in. So they did that. and once they took a reading like i do remember the the woman looking at the man like you know an unspoken look you know i'm supposedly i'm a director for a living and shit so sometimes you got a frame of somebody's cheating a clue or whatever something like that was you know fucking just one of those wasn't that shifty where it's like oh what's that mean but i did see a glance between them and then my man goes you know what we're gonna take you to the hospital and i was like oh please don't do that this is embarrassing he goes no just in case he's going look it'll help me.

29:33Like, it'll look good for me and my job and stuff. And he's like, you never been to that hospital before? I was like, no, I visit people. He goes, oh, you're gonna love it. It's gonna be great. Like, you know. You're gonna love it, huh? He was selling it, man. Maybe it was for a big farm or something. Well, thank God that dude made the call he did and her, the two of them, the two medics. And they chose not to go to the hospital they were supposed to take me to. They went to one that was a little further away because they knew that was the one where heart people went. Wow. And thank God they took me to that one.

29:59And that guy who saved my life, Dr. Leidenheimer, ladenheim ladenheim he was uh he like got pulled in at the last minute and shit like all of it like worked out but i saw another doctor dr paula like months later man like after this all happened after it happened i went on colbert and told the story i've told the story for like years and shit like that right so i finally see dr paul because we're gonna go make jay and silent bob reboots this is like 2019 and she's the doctor you see before you go make a movie or something that like clears you, you know, especially for the director, because they got to insure you for the whole run of the show.

30:34Since I just had a massive heart attack, the insurance company was like, make sure this motherfucker could direct. Like, we know he can't direct. Like, we've read the reviews. But like, make sure he can direct on set. So when I came in to see her, she was like, oh my God, look at you. She's going, I heard about your story. I saw you talking about it on TV. Everywhere you talk about the heart attack. I was like, yeah, I know. And she's going, and you keep talking about how, like it was 80 chance of dying i was like yeah she's gone uh i'm gonna tell you right now she's gonna tell you a story i've wanted to tell you ever since i heard about your heart attack she's gone you know i used to be in cardio and i was like get out of here she's yeah and there were four of us we're gonna cedars on a heart patient you know open heart we're having the surgery and all of a sudden right in the middle of it massive widow maker strikes i was like well if you're open heart surgery and have it in the hospital before doctors because not the patient one of the doctors drops to the fucking floor has a massive heart attack wow i was like well at least three other doctors and cedar side actually goes that's the point of the story is we lost him she said we had all the talent in the world and all the tools to save a human being but when it comes to the widow maker it ain't up to the doctor she's going i love dr layton i'm sure but you give him a lot more credit than he probably deserves because he did his job right but it ain't even up to him at the end damn he's not even any good i mean he's good enough because i'm here so i'll always believe in him but she was like that thing makes up its mind and does what it's want what it wants she's going so she's gone i heard you say 80 she's guys wanted to correct you that's not true i was like i always thought that was i she goes bullshit it's 83 83 17 she's like 83 patient goes she's going so you're here for a reason keep telling that story she's going because people don't know she's like the way you talk about it and shit that's how most people think about it And it's true.

32:17For the last five, six years, man, like this, no bullshit. Von Ward. I love that. Yeah, somebody made that for us. It's fucking awesome. Very sweet of them. I was walking on running recently. I got these two German Shepherds walking them up running, birdie and lucky. And this tall dude stops me and he goes, hey, man, I'm going to have my headphones in. He goes, hey. And I say, hey, what's up? And he's like, I just wanted to tell you, like, you have saved at least six lives at my job that I know of. And I was like, ooh, how? And he goes, I work at Kaiser. I've had at least six people come in with heart ailments that reference you.

32:56He's going, sometimes they know exactly who you are. They'll say Kevin Smith. He's going, a lot of times, I'll be honest, they say Kevin James, but they're talking about you. Sometimes they go, he's the guy. You don't say nothing in movies. He's going, but all of them have heard you talk about it. And because they did, they were like, I should go in just in case. And he's going, these people would have died otherwise. He's going, so keep doing what you're doing, man. And so when I got out, you know, I was in the nuthouse like a year and a half ago. And so when I got out of there, like I put up a video on People Magazine and shit.

33:27Damn, you fucked up. It happened. I mean, everybody is. You'll get there one day. Oh, yeah, I could be there this afternoon, but I'm hearing you. Especially, well, not with that free fucking Celsius, man. You're living on Easy Street, Theo. There are those of us who have to fucking pay for Celsius. You know how much I pay for those? $2.89 a can, this motherfucker can't. I come in, he goes, take as many as you want. I was like hello new best friend I want to work on your fucking show I'll just greet people like there's a nice dude who greeted me in the fucking parking lot and goes oh man I'm a big fan like I loved your movies when I was a kid and shit I'll be that guy especially if I get to walk home with like fucking 12 packs you'll float home dude I ain't looking for free money dude I ain't that kind of like fucking carpet bagger but I just want to wet my beak a little on the sun just drip a little on my tongue they um the yeah all of our cabinets are filled with they've sent too much actually so what yeah don't fucking say shit like that i'm telling you like fucking how i i thought i knew i thought i had the podcast and came down to a science and you're like we have so much celsius we flush it down the toilet on a regular basis i'm like no yeah i'm gonna start throwing cans of it into a schoolyard you know what i'm saying fucking make it rock fuck kevin smith i'm like why you don't go here like watch the show you'll understand i'm just gonna write get an ekg throw it into an elementary school um so what's good i don't live here or work here bro because i'd be doing yeah i was amazed today and be like hey theo man someone's in the parking lot they really want to be on the show i'm like dude oh that's a shadow bro you're good it's good though it tastes oh no it tastes really good i'll have some too actually i don't well don't fucking you know don't follow into the hole, dude.

35:05He'll bring one in. I got one here if you want to take this pair. You have some of it. Can I get that again? What flavor is it? Galaxy Vibe. Can I get another one more? This one I want Cosmic and next I want to go Galaxy. We have - I'm tasting them all. You don't understand, man. Fucking this shit. Oh, you've got them all. Again, 239 cans. So sometimes I'm in 7-Eleven. I'm like, I want to try Cosmic Vibe, but 239 is expensive. So now I know I can just come here and fucking do a taste test, sample them all. What about Mediocre Vibe? How much is that? Fucking - That's what I sell. Oh, wait. I never finished my Lexington story.

35:38Yeah. And it all started. I veered off course because I was talking about being vegan. But the heart stuff, right? Yeah, but hold that thought. Let me finish that because this makes me laugh. Okay. Because this fucking happened. So I'm in Lexington. And I... Oh, you rock. Fucking name. There you go, dude. My man's hustling because he heard me gunning for the job. I was like, I'll fucking be one of those guys. He's like, oh, fuck that. We got vans. See, I'm halfway there and shit. So there I am in Lexington and I got an app on my phone if you're a vegan, which again, I'm not pushing on people. I do it to save my life.

36:12It's called Happy Cow. Wherever you are, you enter a thing. Like I'm where I am and they'll tell you places you can find vegan food or vegan adjacent. Oh, that's great. It's helpful, right? So I'm in Lexington. I fucking enter Lexington, Kentucky. The app laughs at me and shit because they don't believe in that shit there at all. So there ain't no fucking vegan food to find except you can go Burger King and get an Impossible Whopper without cheese. Or my kid told me, oh, White Castle does Impossible Sliders. So I was like, fuck, I'm going to go to White Castle, man. I passed a White Castle. I was like, so I go into the White Castle in Kentucky.

36:45And I go up to the counter. I'm like, can I? And I look up and there's Impossible Sliders. I said, can I get six Impossible Sliders? And the lady looks at me and then she looks up at the menu. She's like, I don't know. She goes, hold on. And then she goes into the, like the freezer case for five minutes. Then comes out with a frozen ass fucking box with like fucking look like Iceman. Like fucking they unearthed it from the primordial man trapped in ice. Like from that Mel Gibson movie? Yes. And she was like, this is going to take a minute. And I was, we don't do these a lot. I was like, that's cool.

37:17I'll wait. So I'm sitting at the counter and all of a sudden I hear, no, no. And you know, but you know what that is. Somebody got their period at work. Exactly. And I'm like, good thing I carry tampons. Ma 'am, here you go. Usually when you hear that, that's somebody going like, hey, it's you. I don't always assume that. But being that we're in a white castle in Kentucky, I'm like, either there's a fight about to break out or I've just been me. And that's fair. I look like Silent Bob at all times and shit. So I turn around, not like egotistically like, well, of course it's me. I'm pretty sure that that hay is directed in my direction.

37:56No, no. And I turn around, he goes, just at White Castle? And I was like, yeah. And he goes, oh. And he comes over and he hugs me. And he's like blazed as fuck. He's almost like a character out of one of my flexing shit. Traveler of the Green, absolutely lovely. And he goes, you don't remember this, but you took me to the movies once. And I'm like, oh, 20 years prior, I was doing a show at the University of Kentucky or whatever. and it was when Changing Lanes was coming out, Ben Affleck movie. So I was like, I'm here for two nights, so tomorrow I got nothing to do. I'm going to go see Changing Lanes at this multiplex.

38:33Anybody who wants to come, I'll buy you a ticket and shit. I thought like fucking 10 people would show up 11 o 'clock in the morning, 200 fucking people. So I wound up having to pay for a theater full of people and shit. And it ran an article or a story ran about in Entertainment Weekly where they were like, there was a huge bump for Changing Lanes in Kentucky and that's because Kevin Smith took people out. So that dude was there. story and i was like holy shit man that's fucking nice seeing you that's crazy like i never run into people from that and he goes um he goes i love affleck man he's going because he's talking about changing it's a good thing you did for your boy he's going i love affleck he's my batman i was like yeah man he's all of our batmans and stuff and he goes he's really going through it right now our boy isn't he now he's our boy and i was like yeah yeah i guess i mean i've seen some articles and stuff.

39:20And he goes, we should call him. And I was like, um, yeah, we don't. Yeah. Now, you know, as previously mentioned, like I lost my mind a year and a half ago, I went to mental hospital for a while, found out at the root of all my issues is I'm very codependent, people pleaser crazy. So I came home and told my wife that she's like, marriage is codependence. I'm like, all right, but really any doctor will tell you not right. So I, I, I don't know how to like feel about myself. I need you to tell me how I feel about me. I don't put on my own mask first. I'm going to put your mask on. I got to take care of everybody before I fucking take care of myself because I learned at a young age that I'm only useful if I show a utility.

40:05If I'm like, uh, I can be useful. I could do this for her. I can make you laugh. Uh, I can fucking take care of your bills i could do this that is how i know that i'm a worthwhile human being yeah like there's no just natural value unless i'm producing something yes unless i'm useful to somebody what the fuck am i doing and stuff so you know as i'm sitting there and a guy's going we should call him you know a normal human being would be like well absolutely that's out of the question yeah but my people pleasing nature is like i mean i guess we should shouldn't we like i don't want to let this guy down, this guy who I haven't seen in 20 years, don't know his name.

40:41And he just started going, no, no in White Castle. So I was like, all right, best of all possible worlds. Let me see if I can get this going. So I was like, all right, you know what? I'm going to call him. So I pull out my phone. I called Jason Mews instead. And so I called Jason and I'm like, Ben, hey man, it's Kevin. I'm in Kentucky at a White Castle. And there's a dude here who I took to see Changing lanes 20 years ago. And then I go, Ben, hold on. Jason Mewes is texting me. And I pull the phone away and I text to Jason, the Ben Affleck on speaker. And then I go back to the phone and I go, Ben, Jason's fine.

41:17He says, hi. Anyway, I'm going to put you on speaker. Say hi to my man here. So I put him on speaker and I was like, go ahead. My man goes, Ben, man, how you doing, man how you doing and he goes muse who has worked with ben affleck is friends with ben affleck went to his fucking wedding and shit like that like knows ben and what he sounds like this is jason muse's approximation of ben affleck on the phone yo yo yo this is big ben affleck coming at you like he was a strip club dj and so this guy goes ben man like i've been reading like guy bought it Like, he's like, Ben, I've been reading. Like, I feel bad for you, man.

41:56You got to just hang in there, man. And he goes, and then Muse goes, well, you know what they say. Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms, yo. And there's a line from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. And that guy went nuts. He was like, oh, my God, he said that thing. And I was like, he always says that thing. And then, so I was like, we got to, we're going to, we're going to go. And then Jason goes, yeah, I got to go too. Matt Damon's taking me to Target bye and I hung up and that dude was so delighted man so delighted and he goes that's awesome he's going that was a good thing to do for your friend he feels good now we gave him support and I was like yeah you're absolutely right and then he's like what about Muse can we call Jay now and I was like mercifully the lady was like six impossibles yes thank you and out I went and stuff oh that's a sweet story dude that made it happen because I was vegan bro oh it's true So that's my, there it is.

42:53Go vegan. No, don't. That's your pitch for veganism. My pitch, if I had to pitch for it, it would be like, you know, this is the, most people approach things from a position of vanity, right? Like fucking, they don't really truly care about like their health. They just want to look better. Oh, that's interesting. I feel that that's generally the case. So look, it was definitely the case with me. And if we look better, we will feel better. One imagines. but but really it's not like my whole life prior to the heart attack you know i've been on a zillion diets and fucking optifest did any everything but the surgery because i'm fucking scared of you know getting cut and shit like that so the lat band surgery you mean yeah yeah so like you know i've been that person that's like man what's the secret how do you do it and for years people have just been saying like oh you gotta eat less and you gotta exercise a lot more i'm like yeah I know but what's the real secret shit I was never interested in being healthy I just wanted to look normal like everybody else and now like I've lost weight but I don't look normal like everybody else if I took my fucking gear off and shit like it's not like I had any surgery like I got all this excess fucking skin that just hangs does that start to go away that skin?

44:04can you put like vitamin E oil on it or something? I mean maybe the stretch marks might go away but like that hanging skin that just hangs bro is there any way to absorb it back in or anything? I think so with the aid of unstable molecules if we were in a marvel fucking comic but no bro the skin being an organ it just fucking distends and if you've distended it that's it so you could do this shit but that's crazy well this is when you go under the knife and they cut it off and I've had a friend of mine you know I'm not a libertarian to say but a friend of mine went through that and a friend of mine was like because my friend lost a lot of fucking weight I think he's talked about it.

44:40You know what? Yeah. But he was like, I know you, dude, and I know you threshold for pain. He's going, you never, ever want to do this. He's going, in retrospect, I would never do it again. He's the most pain I've ever been in my entire life. So, all right. We won't put it on if he hasn't said it publicly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, right. But, yes. So. Wow, that guy. Yeah. He's my boy. Looks amazing. He, um. If you go to the picture on the right, you can see, like, Like the one all the way over. That was just there. Sorry. Yeah, that one. Like there's the drapey skin, the creping effect, they call it.

45:16Oh, interesting. So he looks good. I'd kill to look like that. Shit, that'd be amazing. Mine is just hanging. Like mine's like, remember the scene in The Shining when fucking Nicholson goes to the one room and the gorgeous lady gets out of the tub and they start making out and all of a sudden he looks at her and she's like, and she just doubled, like she got droopy fucking. that's what I look like where I take my girl so that's what my wife gets to fuck damn hey lucky her dude it's almost like fucking like one of those cats that doesn't have any hair on it kind of that's right right I mean some and some people like that sort of shit oh yeah that's my wife I always talk about my wife in regards to like you know people ask various people about like how do you succeed when I'm doing Q &As or whatever and I was like it's you know success you can't guarantee that anyone's ever gonna be interested in your bullshit I don't care who you are Kevin Feige, that guy that makes all the Marvel movies and shit.

46:09Kevin Feige is his name? Kevin Feige. So probably the most successful producer in history. The only Kevin who must be saved at all costs because those movies rock. Even when Deadpool Wolverine was about to open up, which is now making what, 1.3 billion? Guarantee you, Kevin Feige still clenched his asshole and was like, man, I hope they show up. Because nobody knows for sure. And they've actually experienced one or two movies where the people didn't show up and stuff. So in a world where you can't guarantee that an audience is going to show up, the only audience member you can go out of your way to please is audience member number one.

46:43That thing only exists because you want to do it. So if you love it, that's how you have to proceed. It's like, I did this for me and I love it and this is my expression and stuff. And man, I hope others go for it. But this is as good as it's ever going to get. You can't count on people showing up and stuff. So in a world where like you can't count on an audience showing up, do the thing that nobody's seen before, nobody's looking at. Tell your story. I always tell folks like, you know, when I'm out there, like your voice is your currency, man. Like your voice is how you see the world, your perspective and how you spit it back to the world.

47:20It's very unique. Theo has a distinctive fucking voice. Every comedian has a very distinctive voice. You hope most storytellers do and stuff. public speakers generally, why people gravitate toward them over and over again. It's like, I like their perspective. I like what they say. That is, as we're sitting in a place where I could drink any fucking Celsius I want. Proof positive that fucking your voice is your currency. Because Theo is spending his fucking currency. His voice has built all this. After that Celsius, I'm like, you must be the richest man I know. Why would it be one cooler? But we had a - It's a pretty, don't undersell this.

47:58It is a nice cooler. it's a tall it's taller than me it's taller than you it's like a new york city apartment i mean it really is somebody would pay at least 1400 bucks for that where do you go in jersey because you're a fucking road king you're out there i've been out there for years you're in jersey where do i go i've seen for years whenever i've been at a club i've seen your name and shit like that oh now i don't see your name at the clubs anymore son same because you're in the bigger venues we started getting into bigger venues oh heavens yeah and that's been interesting so where's Jersey for you where do you do a show Jersey let me think Red Bank yeah that's my fucking town bro that's number one where I was born number two where Jay and Silent Bob Secret Stash the comic book store I've had for 27 fucking years is in that town so you're talking about doing the Count Basie yes Count Basie Theater and the Vogels right next door and shit like that yeah that's where we went to next time no bullshit next time you do Count Basie please let me know I have a movie theater that's like fucking 20 minutes from there 15 minutes from there you grew up you grew up This is the movie theater that I grew up going to with my friends and one my dad took me to when I was a kid and whatnot.

49:02The one where I had. It's so cool. Oh, it's beautiful. And they were going to kill it and close it after COVID. It's over 100 years old. So me and my friends got in and saved it. It's called Spot Castle Cinemas and whatnot. And we do shit all the time. We just did Vulgarthon, which is like show every Viewskewniverse movie. So Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jane Silent Bob Shrugback, Clerks 2, Jane Silent Bob Reboot, and Clerks 3. so eight movies, 16 hours of movies. We started at like Saturday morning at nine. We finished Sunday at like five in the morning. 700 fucking people in four different theaters and shit like that.

49:34That's awesome, dude. So it's fun for shit like that. So we've had comedy there. I've done shows there. Somebody shot a stand-up special there and whatnot. So if you're going to be in fucking Red Bank, oh my God, I'll bring you over and we'll do a like watch with Theo thing. You pick a favorite movie and shit. We'll show it and then you show up and then we just sit around and bullshit. Dude, I would probably pick Family Man. I like that movie. Have you seen it? With Nicolas Cage? Yeah. It's a beautiful fucking movie. Oh. That's really, that's a Brett Ratner movie that a lot of people never talk about anymore.

50:04I thought that was one of his. If I remember correctly. Yeah. But I remember the movie. It's very, it's a wonderful life. Yes. Capra-esque. It's kind of like that vibe. Is that the shit you fuck with? Yeah, I really, that's probably my favorite movie, I think. I like League of Their Own. I love League of Their Own. I fucking lived across the street from Penny Marshall for years. And when I was like in my heyday of podcasts and whatnot, you know, we started doing it at the house all the time. So she came over. So again, she like lived right across the street and shit. Penny Marshall, bring her up.

50:34I got to talk to her about League of Their Own. Just sit there because Penny Marshall had this brilliant, like every once in a while, directors hit strong in threes and have like bang, bang, bang. Penny Marshall had big awakenings and a League of Their Own back to back to back. She's a pretty fascinating lady. This was Laverne and Shirley She was Laverne Of Laverne and Shirley And then she became a director later And spent most of her career as a director After doing that show for what? 10 seasons or whatever? Dude, we went to the town where Rockford We went to Rockford, Illinois And went to the museum there And went and saw all the Rockford Peaches memorabilia and shit Are you serious?

51:14Yeah, it's pretty cool stuff I love that movie Do you cry when you watch that movie? Are you allowed to cry? A League of Their Own? Yeah Are you a fucking butch dude and shit? No, I'll fucking cry. I cry a lot. I get made fun of on the internet for crying. For not only just crying, but then I post pictures of myself crying. Like I saw Black Panther 2. I came out. I took a picture in front of the poster and I was teary-eyed. Two days, fucking the internet was like, you cuck fuck. Like how dare you? They were very angry at me for that. Yeah, I cried. I mean, if I saw it, yeah, I mean, I'll cry. I mean, yeah, I've cried.

51:42But you won't put it out there and shit. I've been crying. I mean, yeah, there's too many clips of me crying online. Is that right? Yeah. What makes you cry? Oh, just like thinking about stuff or talking about stuff. Like, I don't know, like earlier we were talking about like people pleasing, like thinking about. Do you got issues? Got MH issues, mental health? Oh, yeah. First of all, hold on. There's a couple of questions I want to ask so don't forget. One is what are some of the signs if people are getting sick or something that you feel like you neglected so that people can. Heart attack side or head side?

52:10Heart attack. Heart attack. Heart attack. Sweating profusely, which I did quite a lot as a man who was over 300 pounds. not being able to catch your breath. I refer to it as I couldn't quite ring the bell. Like, you know, you bang and fucking bing. That game at the fucking fair. Oh, yeah, yeah. Felt like I'd be like bang, hitting it hard. I'd be like, and then just come back down. So I couldn't hit the top. Couldn't quite catch my breath, so to speak. I was looking for the numbness in the arm. Yeah. Because I was raised watching fucking Sanford and Son. So, Lizbeth, this is the big one. And that's what he always did.

52:47Clutched his arm and did this shit. that never happened never felt that nausea also like i wound up throwing up and i didn't have anything in my stomach so it was just bile um these very subtle things that like i hate bile dude totally but you would you could mistake that for like oh i was nervous or fucking maybe i had some bad milks i was a big milk drinker in those days so you could oh there's nothing watching a big fella drink milk dude can we just you would have been turned on bro seriously i don't know which way you swing. You would have watched me drinking the milk on the beard and stuff.

53:19You'd been like, I'm going bare. Because you're a total otter type. It could have worked. An otter in the gay community? Yeah. If I had to, yeah, like Scott Mosher, people would always tell me, hey man, he's, there you go, son. Come on, that looks like a good time. And I know a lot of people would look at that and be like, this guy's fucking nuts, but he's living his best fucking life. Have you ever been that happy? Uh-uh. No, I've been listening to that fucking song that was at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and it's Florence and the Machine, and it's... Happiness hit her like a bullet to the...

53:55Bullet in the back. Bullet in the back. Let's just stop and appreciate the poetry of that line. All right. Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back. When was the last time you were ever hit by the happiness bullet in the back? That's a good question, man. I went to this recently. I went to this... I mean, happy too. Because I'm sure every day you wake up and you're like, I'm Theo fucking Bond. Like, holy shit, my mouth. I use my mouth on people and I'm rich now. Yeah, and it's not for BJing. Well, oral's oral, my friend. You're in the mouth service business. Paint it any way you want. We're all whores.

54:30Yeah, being chatty is just a real drawn out blowjob. But I'm not talking about being satisfied with the job and stuff. I'm talking about like true fucking happiness that has nothing to do with who you are. Like my friend Scott Mosher at one point, he was just like, what do you want to do? If you could do anything in the world. And that's your smart cast co-host? Yeah. One of the smartest people I've ever known. He said, if you could do anything you wanted. He's going, you almost died a few years ago. So if you could do anything you wanted, what would make you happy? And he goes, but it can't have anything to do with being Kevin Smith for a living.

55:03Or the movies, or any of that. He's going, I'm just talking like normal ass shit. and that fucking, that rocked my world for a few days. I couldn't come up with an answer necessarily. The best answer I could come up with was I was like, what would make me happy? Like if I had a conversation with my father and he's dead 20 years. And not because I'm like, we could settle issues, but that'd be fucking wonderful and shit. But I had to reach into fiction, into the impossible to find something. And I would ask other people, I asked my brother, my brother without misdemeanor, he's like, oh, I'd go on a world cruise.

55:35And I was like, what's that? He's like, it's exactly what it sounds like. You just cruise around the world for like a year. Yeah, on a boat. But he knew. And other people I talked to were like, oh, I'd do this. It's a good question. And there were normal-ass things that are within one's doing. And I think my fucking radar is busted, and I imagine yours is as well, because the idea of what makes others happy or what makes a person happy is shattered when you can wake up and whimsy about something and create it. And just by dreaming about it and doing it, we're putting the podcast together, just sitting around speaking your mind.

56:13You've gotten paid and you've gotten a bunch of people going like, we fucking like, we support you and shit like that. When that scale exists. It's, I found, and I, the more I speak to other creatives, like after the fucking going to the mental hospital, now I feel freer to talk to others about it and shit. where it's like, I'm not saying like life can't make you happy, but when you've had that ability and there's a certain happiness that goes along with financial success, creative success, personal success, when your highs are like, um, oh, let's get Alan Rickman to be in dogma. it's tough to find a normal high you know what i'm saying like yeah it's interesting man i think is that is that one percent fucking rarefied view thinking no i don't know if i feel does that make me instantly unrelatable no i just think it makes it make sense like if you if you've had interesting things that would most people would seem like are um would make people happy or we all believe would make us happy then it makes sense then that you might have a tougher time finding certain happiness you know i don't know what i would do probably like something that would really really make me happy um i don't know uh isn't that crazy you can ask anybody listening to the show maybe giving a hug to my brother or something like that or taking a walk with my brother somewhere is your brother your brother you're your brother type yeah we're close so i I think something like that.

57:57What else? Spending time with like a teacher or something that I grew up with. Yeah, probably if I got to see my dad again or something like that. I mean, that's, you know, my dad passed away too. So like, yeah, I think if there was something like that, I think it would make me like really happy. Maybe having a. Isn't it crazy that we have to reach into the grave to be like, well, that would make me really happy. Yeah. But also. Essentially the impossible. Being in love with somebody probably. Are you? No, I'm not. I have a tough Dick? I wish, huh? Tough dick? Chicks are like, I ain't into that tough dick shit Look at this That's what my dick does, tough My dick has a brass, just one brass knuckle on it No, I don't know, yeah, probably having a family Being able to be happy and have a family, shit like that Wouldn't one brass knuckle essentially be a cock ring?

58:46It probably would But you know what, I think I like yourself better Because cock ring, some people, I don't fuck with that But how would you like one brass knuckle on your dick? A lot of people are like, as long as it's my choice, I don't want your breast knuckle on my dick. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like A-Lo or Allbirds or Skims or what's the one like those little yogurts? Well, usually you think about a specific product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing, but an often overlooked secret is actually the business behind the business making selling simple.

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1:01:12I've used fume and it is effective. Flavored air isn't like vaping. If vapor was compared to sticky soda, fume cores are closer to herbal teas. Fume has lots of delicious flavors to choose from like crisp mint and orange vanilla. There's a cranberry one as well as a grapefruit one. Those are the ones I've been using. So start your journey with a good habit and get a free gift with your journey pack, which includes a fume device, three core flavors of your choice, and a cleaning kit. Go to tryfume.com. That's T-R-Y-F-U-M.com and use code Theo. Say ciao to your bad habits today. so you're obviously have been a big comic guy and in that whole zeitgeist and it's been a big part of what made you you right it's honestly like i was into that shit like if you watch mall rats in 95 it's a big part of it and stuff and the culture wasn't like the culture was like comic books those are for kids i just got real fucking lucky in that you know about 15 years ago the culture shifted into all the shit that i was already into and well versed in so i got like a free fucking ride for about a good 15 20 years on a geek train that like i never had to make a comic book right i've directed some comic book shows like supergirl flash and stuff like that but like really it's just i was insanely well positioned because i was waving the flag for this shit when people were like what do you mean yeah yeah that's lucky when we're what you do culture yes it's the same as you feel that is where you are right now no i see you feel you were an overnight success or it was like 10 years of a thing before fucking oh yeah it was for it was a long time you don't feel you're in the fucking zone right now like in terms of like the man has met the moment and vice versa um I don't know I guess because I don't know what my what my end goals are sometimes I see it when I look at a guy like Joe Rogan to drop his name again and you can use it a few times too twice twice in one but because he got into UFC and that rose and I think it he helped he also helped But to be fair, I'm not saying I'm Joe Rogan, but I too did the labor of love just like him.

1:03:30That's what I'm saying. Once again, though, he found a way to monetize his passions where I think he's probably indispensable to the UFC. When he comments, do they pay him? I'm pretty sure they must have a deal, like an overall deal. Not only he may have put in the work and shit, but now he's financially remunerated. He was in on it early. He trained and then he started talking. I remember going, like, the kids at my school that you knew were going to probably die young or whatever they say. You had those. They were the ones watching that on the weekend. Like, come watch it. It's like, you know, Willie the fucking, you know, short Willie versus fucking.

1:04:10Willie the short Willie? Versus the violent homo or something. Like, that's like, who are these guys? And it would be like, one guy would be like 400 pounds fighting a guy that was like 120 pounds. and it would just be like a massacre, you know? But that's when the UFC, there wasn't weight classes, all of that. Look at him. What a puppet. It's like his news radio days. Yeah, I mean, he's a handsome guy. Believe me, I understand who Joe Rogan is today and I love that. But you knew him back then? Well, I mean, my first introduction to Joe Rogan was on news radio. And I fucking love news radio. It's one of my favorite sitcoms ever produced.

1:04:44So I've watched, and they only had about four seasons max or something. So you could, it's not like, you know, fucking friends where you can do 12 seasons. You could get through it. You can go enjoy it. In a day and then start it again and shit. So Joe was like, that's how I first knew him and knew about him and stuff. And then the podcasting thing, you know, I remember going on the show in the early days and every time I've ever been on. And he's, you know, clearly there's a reason why the fucking man is at the top of the game. He's just interesting and interested. He's interested. He's genuinely curious.

1:05:18Yeah. that's the worst but he's curious but he also like fucking hits you with shit where you're like no like he's just that guy at the party where he's you know slowly the crowd gravitates around him whether he's trying to magnetize him and whether he's putting on a show or not because he's just interesting got a lot of information he's like a thoroughfare for information he's like an airport for information and he retains information really well and he's genuinely curious you'll kind of say something and then he'll ask you about it and you're almost like fuck now I have to actually say something about this he was the first one that did this shit though where somebody you're talking and all of a sudden he's like look that up and somebody somebody listens and a reference person like helping out um we didn't have that in the early days yeah i uh a lot of like i feel like there's less comedy movies these days would you agree with that no i think there are less movies period okay is it a lot of like there's a lot of almost comic book type movies and universes that are the, those are the movies now.

1:06:21Does that feel weird to you? Because they're not weird to you. You're like, what are your thoughts on that? That it's like, I don't know if one, like, like has eliminated the other, but it's just kind of, um, like, why is that? Why do we see these big, huge things? But it's, it's feels tougher to, for somebody to create, um, just like a good comedy these days? I think good comedy went to TV and to streaming because they needed to fill coffers quick, fill programming schedules quick. Or did the Marvel universes and all the comic book universes, did they kill off the guy? 100 % no. Studios like to make money.

1:07:07They're in the business to make money. I don't think a comic book movie has made them go like, let's give up on the middle mid range. They're just like, look, more risk, more reward. And then when I first started, you had, there was television, there was movies. Now there are many more options and many more places to go. So instead of doing, you know, and you'll see it like an eight, six or eight episode show where you're like, could have done in three. It's because like a lot of people are like, all right, I'm going to take my idea that was for a feature and stretch it out into a show. So I think, you know, nevermind comedy, I'd be more curious, hey, where'd the indie film go?

1:07:47Yeah. But I think the indie film moved, was taken over by Netflix. Once Netflix came in, number one, they started buying cheap movies. And number two, they started making programming that was kind of interesting. They went to other countries and they were like, who are your top filmmakers? Here's money, go make TV shows and stuff. And that's where all the interesting ideas are going and finding a home. You're somebody who wants to tell an offbeat story. And you're looking at this Sisyphean task of like, I got to roll this fucking boulder up the hill. Like every time I make a movie, it's like, fuck, here we go.

1:08:22It's going to be fucking tough. Or you walk into these cats and they're like, what's it about? How esoteric is it? Interesting. Go ahead. Can you make it six episodes? Can you make it eight? That's preferable. and that's where all the interesting programming has slowly gravitated to. Now. So you're saying some of the indie movies have actually become television shows. I think indie filmmakers or people that make things off the beaten path, stories that don't necessarily fall into the big budget equation, have wound up going to streaming. Like, you know, what was fucking Jason Bateman's show? Ozark.

1:08:57Yeah. It's an indie film. This just happens to be a series that went on for a bunch of episodes because they're like, hey, we like it, do it again. Instead of getting a sequel, you just get another season. That's a good point. It's like, it was almost like, there's a secret gay guy at the lake. It was like people playing gay clue at the lake. Remember? Cause like that one guy. In Ozark? Yeah. I didn't watch the whole show. And, I was just using an example. It started to get redundant. Like it started to get. But now for some reason, I really want to play gay clue. Does that exist? No, they should have that, right?

1:09:24Right. Like he did it. Yeah. It was, it was like. What do you use the candlestick for? They'll like, find out. Samuel's been in the billiard room for a while. while in the conservatory not being very conservative wow i've never used that to uh cue my pool stick before what's that thing called to chalk i've never chalked that way yeah um so so you're so that's interesting i think i think that's part of believe me i'm not like and that's exactly what happened and no it's cool i think that's part of it i think you know netflix came in disrupted the business as we all know in a in a way that at first people were like yeah and now people are like, wait a second, in the aftermath, nothing existed the way that existed before.

1:10:08Television viewership is like down to almost nothing so much so that major studios are writing off entire network divisions and stuff like that, devaluing television in order to get a write-off. So once Netflix came in and said, hey, this is how we're doing it, and then every other company was like, well, shit, we got to do what they're doing. And they started doing streaming and whatnot, it just really, it broke the model. It's kind of nuts. So right now, I think if you're a person that likes to tell off the beaten path stories, or if what we used to call back in the day, an indie filmmaker, now's the time to shine.

1:10:45I think there's a moment that's going on right now where entertainment, like the way people are getting their entertainment, of course, has completely changed over the last 10 years, but theatrical consumption has been way off since COVID and some people wonder if like, will people ever go back to movies the way they used to and blah, blah, blah. Uh, they're not going to go unless you give them something they can't get any place else. So they'll go to the theaters to see Deadpool Wolverine. Cause like, I ain't going to be able to watch this at home for like six months. So fuck it. But what if you tell them a story going back to your voices, your currency, they've never heard before.

1:11:17And the only place they could see it was in a theater. And right now theaters are hurting. So they'll fucking take anybody. It doesn't matter. It used to be tough to get screens. Now, are you fucking kidding me? You can make a deal with AMC, a private deal with your own independent movie where you're like, can I get a hundred screens and we'll do a door split or whatever the fuck? It's possible because movie theaters, as a movie theater exhibitor, I know this for a fact, we would kill or die to have people come in. Back in the day, I made this movie, the 430 movie, and it's about how in the 80s - This is your new film.

1:11:46This is the new film that's coming out September 13th. In the 80s, We used to pay for one movie and then jump from theater to theater to theater and go see movies for free. I own that movie theater that I used to do that in. We'd get caught, and you might get the risk of being banned from that theater for fucking life. If I caught you walking into another movie theater after you paid for only one movie theater in my movie theater, I'd be like, that's great. Just buy some popcorn, would you? You could stay as long as you fucking want. Call your friends. Have them come. Just to get fucking bodies through the goddamn door.

1:12:16so it's it's yeah this is a bit of a different world at this point but imagine you're an indie filmmaker who wants to say the thing nobody has ever fucking said before in a film per se we're just using film as an example fuck now is your time like uh you could actually make a thing and have it be in a goddamn movie theater and then if you do even the tiniest bit of business with your movie in a movie theater these days that's a fucking story yeah and that also has it's been proven like through the algorithm when uh amazon did air ben affleck's movie air they put it in theaters and they spent air air about air jordans the history of the air oh yeah sneaker um they put it in theaters traditionally and spent money on advertising even though amazon has prime and really they probably thought it would go right there but they were like you know what let's see what it would be like to release a movie like you know amazon and other streamers broke the theatrical model.

1:13:14And here they're going like, wouldn't it be novel? Like us with Smodcast going like, wouldn't it be weird if somebody paid for an ad on our show? These cats are like, wouldn't it be novel if we put the movie out and paid for ads and people saw a trailer and then went to the movies to see it? Would it make it more valuable when we then put it on Prime? And it did naturally. They found the same thing out on Netflix, movies that go the traditional route, the way that everybody expects. I've seen a commercial for that on TV. That will be a primary choice on Netflix rather than a Netflix made for Netflix movie that may have the biggest fucking stars on the planet on it in it, but you will pass it by.

1:13:51Yeah, it feels crazy. So there's something about just watching a movie that's just on Netflix or on a street. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. There is, there is a value to putting something in a theater still. It gives it this kind of panache. Now, if you're an indie filmmaker and you're out there going like, nobody's ever fucking heard my story. They've never heard my voice. They've never fucking seen what I can do. And if you're sitting there right now going, I fucking hate Kevin Smith. He makes the same fucking movie every time. 30 years in the business, all he's done is make Clerks of J and Silent Bob.

1:14:19Great. Now's your fucking time. Now's your time to shine. Don't sit there, waste your time at home looking at me, hating on me. Use me as your fucking example and stepping stone. Like if that fucking talentless idiot could do it, then I could fucking do it too. And now is the time for another indie filmmaking movement. Now it feels like with the frustration of real fucking filmmakers who, I know people that make millions to fucking make movies sitting on our asses because ain't nobody fucking making movies. Could you imagine if the only way you got to do your show is if somebody told you, okay, now you could go.

1:14:51No, you enjoy the independence of like, fucking this past weekend is going to happen when I want it to fucking happen. You're your own fucking boss. There are a lot of people that never figured out how to do that. They never came from indie film, so they couldn't pivot back to indie film. They've just been spoiled by working for a studio. So now with the studios not making anything, they're like, what do I fucking do? I've always been able to pivot back to indie film. And I feel like even though I've been able to do that, I've been in indie film for a while. Everyone knows every variation of story I could possibly tell.

1:15:18Every once in a while, you'll whip a tusk on them. We're like, well, that's fucking weird. But generally speaking, like he does those James Alaba movies and shit. Now is the time for an indie filmmaker to come out and be like, here's a fucking story nobody's ever heard. Fuck a Tic I mean, I love TikTok, don't get me wrong, but people that spend their time doing little videos and shit, if you're a filmmaker, make your fucking film. And now is the time to take your fucking shot because there is an empty guff in the marketplace for that type of storytelling. All of it has gone mainstream. Streaming is now mainstream.

1:15:51So people who are telling these offbeat stories on streamers, they are essentially studios at this point. When I started an indie film, it was like us outside of Warner Brothers and fucking 20th Century Fox and Paramount going like, well, they'll never let us play. So just because they won't let us in don't mean I can't do it on my own. It's streamers of that now. So if you're out there going like, well, Netflix will never give me a fucking thing. Great. Go do your fucking thing without them. Hang your own fucking shingle. It's time. People are hungry for that. Do you think it's a good idea to sell direct to consumer, right?

1:16:22Fuck yes. David Spade and I wrote a movie, and so we're going to try to get it made. and it feels like it's kind of getting close, right? 100%. And we're like, could we just put it on a website and sell it right there to people? 100%, but also you travel out in the world, man. And so imagine you do a comedy tour, but instead your comedy tour is, hey man, welcome, tonight we're gonna watch a movie and afterwards we're gonna talk about it. All right, so enjoy the show. And then you get to fuck off for 90 minutes. Then you come out and it's all crowd work because you're just answering fucking questions.

1:16:51That's it. You have the ability to do that. Why do you fucking need anybody else? or you've got such an audience and such a long tail that you can go into an AMC like a fucking Taylor Swift and be like, I guarantee you that on my podcast that has 200 fucking million downloads per ever, whatever the fuck, that I can make people come to a theater and show a thing. And even if AMC is like, no, we're not interested, then you go to Fathom Events and be like, hey man, I got a movie. I want to put it in screens for like two fucking days and you'll make like 10 million bucks and they'll write stories about how fucking smart you are.

1:17:23So you don't need anybody, Theo. You have the distribution fucking mechanism already in place. You're a loaded gun at all times. You just have to point your audience in the right direction. And what you do is point them to the next show, the next show, or a live gig. But if you make a movie with Spade or whoever the fuck, don't fucking sell it until you have milked it and juiced it for everything you personally can, the way you juice your own shit. Then fucking give it up to a streamer. Then give it up to somebody like a home video company that's going to put it out and shit like that. because you have the mechanism in place.

1:17:54You already know how to put asses in seats. The big mystery of this business that everyone's always trying to figure out is how do I get fucking people to show up? You know how to get people to show up. Now this would just be you going, okay, when you show up this time, we're going to do things a little differently. I'm just going to show you a movie and then we're going to fucking do a comedy show afterwards and stuff. You get real. Charge the same thing and all that money goes right to the fucking flick. And then you would have money now. Then you could start making other cool movies and have your friends be like, this is a script I like, you could just write it and then it's like you'd have movies would be like free again because there wouldn't be yeah you don't have to go and ask some smarmy fucking dude some what do you mean free again because I'm like I like this world just uh free meaning you could do whatever you want you can do what you want but Theo you could always do whatever you want you have the ability to do that you just have to put your heels together but you already show it on a regular basis you got you are again I cannot fucking stress this enough that Celsius his fucking container is huge.

1:18:53They don't give that to just anybody. It's massive. It's like I walked into a 7-Eleven or at least a fucking... I'm going to pee really fast, actually. I hated it when... Hold on a second. No way, man. No. I'm going. You coming with me? We're doing it. Take my hand. We're filming the Weez in this shit. They died, didn't they? Yeah, but they live forever. That's true. You know what I'm saying? Because they're in a movie. Look, Theo, everybody dies. Not everybody truly lives. Facts, homie. I took that from Braveheart. You did? I mean, that's where it came from. There's a new Asian kind of Braveheart movie coming out.

1:19:33I saw a preview for. How do you know when, keeping on movies, how do you know when, have you ever. Shouldn't movies be like national cuisine? Like you were going, there's an Asian. Braveheart. Braveheart coming out. Shouldn't there be one for every country? Like recently we were talking about, I saw on Netflix, they had this movie called Beneath Paris, which is Jaws in France. Ooh. Shouldn't every country have its own fucking Jaws? We were talking about this on Hollywood Babylon. Yeah, they should. Podcasts I do with Ralph Gorman at Flappers and stuff. And I was like, every country should have its own fucking Jaws.

1:20:11Like, listen, it doesn't have to be the same story, but just give me every country. It should be like the Olympics. Every country is like, you're our best athletes. it should be like here is our best shark movie killer shark movie because everybody can get away with that there are a lot of killer shark movies now it seems cheap now like cheap to do like doing CG shark is not as expensive as building the big rubber one that they did for Jaws and shit like that but you know having each country each nation represented by what they feel is their best possible shark movie like Saving Private Reginald or something like in Africa or something or if they had like...

1:20:49Wait a minute. World War II, like... No, I was just thinking of like a different, like if you had, like we have Saving Private Ryan. Yeah. If they had... Let's just keep it to sharks, Theo. Saving Private... Don't jump into fucking war films. I'm saying like Saving Private Roberto. Before we can do... You know? Every nation gets to make every movie for themselves. We start basic. You start with the shark thing. Okay. We'll get to like Saving Private Richard and shit like that. We're saving Heinrich, right? Because that would be the other side of the war. Yeah. Or something like that. But just a shark fucking picture.

1:21:22Every nation going, like, this is it. Fucking arms race. Yeah. Just like. Like, oh, there's a dangerous koi. And it's like a Japanese one or whatever. Koi. Yeah. It's got to be shark. We got to have rules. I don't know. They have sharks in some places. That's the thing. It's like, it's a fucking movie. What do you eliminate it for? Yeah, you're right. Like, hey, man, in real life. Fuck real life. This is movie time. Say the podcast. Michigan. This is a fucking shark movie. Jaws of Michigan. Yes, bitch. It's just a guy in a fucking hot dog eating contest. Here's how it happened, right? So fucking every night when the Coney Dog place closes, they got leftover Coney Dogs that go bad.

1:21:57Dude don't like to throw it out, so he takes it to one of the Great Lakes, pitches it in the lake. Somebody had disposed of a fucking baby great white shark. He's been eating these fucking hot dogs, so he's fucking massive and shit. Wow, dude, I'm already in. That's awesome, bro. I'm already in. Dude, call David Spade. Let's write that. Finance, self-finance that fucking movie. Honestly, I had a conversation with my friend Logic. There's me going fucking. There's a fucking big name for you. Logic was in the 430. I like Logic. Nice guy. He's an amazing dude. Logic is in the 430 movie. And when he shot his scene, we'd already finished the movie and stuff so he could watch it.

1:22:37So I was like, come to my place. I'll show you the flick. So he watched the flick. And then after the flick, he was like, oh, I fucking love movies. He's like, before even hip-hop, I loved movies. He's going, I found hip-hop through movies. I found Wu-Tang through Quentin and stuff like that. He's always wanted to make a movie. I almost made a movie with J.J. And I was like, J.J.? And he's like, yeah. He's like, but it didn't happen. I was like, J.J.? From good times? No. Yeah, fucking J.J. Like, J.J. Kid Dynamite. What was his name? J.J. Abrams. J.J. Abrams is the director I was talking about.

1:23:07But I love that you went with J.J. Who's the J.J. I'm thinking of? J.J. Evans? J.J. Evans. Yeah. James Evans Sr. I saw him at the airport once. What? Jimmy Walker? Jimmy Walker. That's who I'm thinking of, yeah. There he is. Legend. Oh, yeah. Kid Dynamite. Dynamite. All right, so wait. So JJ, I was surprised that he hadn't made fucking JJ Abrams. He made fucking one of the Star Wars, two of them. You'd imagine it could happen, but he just didn't happen. I said, why? Is it difficult? Is it expensive? He goes, no, it's kind of like Clerks. It's set in one location. And I was like, what, what, what, is it on the moon?

1:23:47And he goes, no, it's just in a record store. I said, bro, you can make that movie yourself. You don't need any help. You got fucking, I'm sure you got money from hip hop. Like you can finance your own movie. And for all the years I've ever said to people, like, you can make a movie. Anybody can make a movie. You should make your own movie. Motherfucker was like, you're right. And he financed his own fucking movie. We went and shot it back in May up in Oregon in St. Helens. And it's called Paradise Records. And so I was a producer on it and I was his editor. Wow. And my God, it's so fucking wonderful.

1:24:16Like it is legit good. He is born to be a filmmaker. And it's kind of a little irritating when a dude who is exceptionally good at one thing and made fucking billions doing it is now like, oh, I'm also good at that. I mean, this fucking dude's good at anything. Did you get Abrams? No, fucking Logic. Oh, Logic. Logic fucking like he could do a Rubik's Cube in front of you in like 12 seconds. Yeah. He's so crazy fucking talented shit. But him as a filmmaker, this movie, Paradise Records, it's going to be fucking, it's going to hit huge. It is fucking awesome. He's the star, and his friend Tremaine is the second lead, and his friend T-Man is absolutely wonderful in the movie.

1:24:51But this dude wrote, directed, and fucking starred in it. And I was so incredibly impressed because he's a legit great actor. Because I cut every frame. I saw every frame of the fucking footage. I was there on set when I shot it, but most of the time I was cutting the movie and shit. And every frame of film, I was like, this guy's fucking a natural. So that movie is fucking wonderful, man. Damn, Paradise Records. Paradise Records. It'll be out next year. How do you know? I want to ask a little bit more about the 430 movie. It comes out September 13th. September 13th. Ken Jeong is in it. He's amazing.

1:25:25It's kind of the story of my young life, the story of the first date that I had in high school and stuff with my girlfriend. About going to a movie, right? I took her to the flick. But in this flick, him and his friends, they're going to the movie theater to hang out for the day and skip from theater to theater to theater. If you've ever listened to smodcast back in the day when me and Scott Moser used to do it, there was this episode we did about emo Kev where I had these old recordings of me where I used to ride around on a bike in my hometown and fucking like, what am I doing? Like real existential crisis shit before I ever made clerks wondering what my future would be and stuff.

1:25:59So we played them on the smodcast and like Scott, like mercilessly fucking died laughing. He just would attack a guy. He's like, oh my God, you sound so fucking dumb. But it was kind of wonderful to listen to and shit. Anyway, the movie is kind of based on that. So it's based on that version of emo Kev, as we call them in the podcast. He would ride around on his bike and be like, when is my life going to begin? So it's that kind of thing. Oh, that's kind of cool. There's a story. Bear McCreary did our score, and he's an absolutely wonderful composer. But him and his brother did a song that ends the movie.

1:26:33and it's a fucking jam it's total earworm and you're like oh my god went and like my friend put it on shazam or whatever because he's like where have i heard that before i was like you never heard it you just fucking created and shit but it's called 24 carat case of love because in the movie as in real life on the episode of smodcast that we did years ago you hear me talking about my ex-girlfriend and i was like i got a 24 carat case of love and that's what broke mosher up the most he was like you fucking unbelievable fucking you know he just attacked me and shit So I put that in the flick. So Bear McCreary and his brother write this closing song for the movie.

1:27:08And he goes, you gotta listen to it, man. I think you'll like it. And the hook of the song is, I got a 24-carat case of love. And I was like, oh my God. So I wrote to Bear and I was like, bro, you took the dumbest fucking shit I ever said on the earth and made it a pretty fucking wicked earworm hook for the song. And he goes, don't shit on that. He's going, you saying I got a 24-carat case of love is the kind of thing that a 16-year-old boy says. Yeah. Is it 24-carat real strong or it's kind of mid? Strong. That was, for me, nothing gets stronger than a fucking 24-carat. Because we didn't have diamonds in our world.

1:27:41I was lower, lower, lower, lower, lower. We were poor. So like 24-carat gold is, my mom had a 24-carat gold wedding band. Oh, yeah. So 24-carat case of love, that's his diamond. My sister's divorced, too. Is that right? Yeah. But so 24-carat, so he took things from those moments you were riding around your bike. He took that exact fucking line and made it the hook for the song. And he's like, never fucking regret saying that. He's like, that's what you say when you're 16. I didn't have the heart to tell him. I was like, really? I said that when I was 22, but whatever. Dude, there's something so magical.

1:28:12So wait, were you raised in Tennessee? I was raised in Louisiana. In what part? Yeah, in a place called Covington, Louisiana. Are you serious? Yeah. So how far is that from like - One hour from New Orleans north. We shot James, Tom and Bob reboot there. That is a fucking fantastic place. No way. Oh, my God. Louisiana, so fucking good to us. Like, I'll always, that was the movie I made after I had the heart attack. You premiered a movie there, too, didn't you? Well, we went to the Joy Theater and showed Jay and Silent Bob reboot when we were on tour. But we shot there, and that was the post-heart attack movies.

1:28:44That was the movie where I was like, holy shit, I was supposed to be fucking dead. Like, so I'm just going to make the movie I want to make. Fuck everything else. And that was Jay and Silent Bob reboot. And so we had to go to Louisiana. We couldn't do it in Jersey because it was a road movie and stuff like that. Louisiana had a fantastic fucking rebate. They had a great fucking crew, man, and the people were so fucking wonderful and shit. And we shot during Mardi Gras. So we took two days down. We actually shot on Mardi Gras at the courthouse, because they were like, that's the only day we're closed.

1:29:10We were like, great, we'll use the courthouse that day. But everyone was so fucking cool, man. And I didn't even fuck with the party half of the city. Like the cast and people who flew in to be in the movie and shit, they would go to like, I went to Bourbon Street and shit. I didn't even get that fucking far, man. It was just like the neighborhood. probably too. When you're putting a movie together, it's a lot. How do you know when, when like, like when you're ramping up to do a movie, things get pretty intense, pretty quick. Right. And then there's just that day where you have to start. How crazy is that first day?

1:29:41Because that's such a, I mean, it's rare that there's such a huge leap. That's going to be so you can't go back. Like you are moving forward. It's begun. You, you spend so much time trying to get to that moment that when the moment happens, you're already prepared. You better be fucking prepared. If you're not, it's like, what the fuck are you crying about all this time? Like you knew this was coming. You pushed for, you wanted this. Right. That's why like after everything I do, no matter whether it works or doesn't work, there's two things I always say to myself. And generally it's more helpful if it didn't work.

1:30:14One is like, you wanted this, like, oh my God, you changed the course of human events to make this fucking movie happen and shit. Like you dreamed about this. You somehow found millions of dollars and convinced people to give up their time, do this fucking, make pretend with you. So it don't matter if it didn't do what you want. You wanted this. You better fucking enjoy it because it's going to pass quick. And then the second thing I always tell myself is like, what was the alternative? Did you even have an alternative? Was the alternative to not do the thing? Then that's not the alternative because knowing that I could do the thing and knowing that I could accomplish it and then not doing the thing would eat at me like a fucking can.

1:30:52That's sad when you know you can accomplish things, but you don't do it because you're like now Well fucking what if somebody don't like it? Like I mentioned before Scary though is all creativity scary but hold of somebody thinking but that's why this is a safe environment You create a thing where you're like these are my rules my house and I don't have you don't worry When a new episode goes up, you don't even think about it You feel like oh I recorded that a couple days ago or last week or something like that but you're so you've built the thing for yourself that is so fucking foolproof and you can avoid sidestep the world of rejection and the world of no you enter here and you created a world of yes for yourself so you don't have that weird trepidation at the beginning of every show because you're like this is exactly i engineered this to be as easy for me as fucking breathing and shit when you're making a flick or something like that there are way more people involved and shit and you've also been dying to do this sometimes you've it's taken 10 years to get It's amazing.

1:31:50We've been working on this, trying to get this movie together. All the agents haven't done anything. So finally we got some of our own friends and stuff, and we're going to put in some of our own money. That's what I was going to say. Like, dude, based on that Celsius case, there's no fucking way that you don't have enough of your own fucking screen. You probably got it in your pocket. Just be like. Oh, yeah, I wish, dude. You can have that thing, brother. I'm sending that to you. It is so possible to do. I tell my kid all the time. My kid who, again, I fucking... Your daughter. My daughter, Harley Quinn.

1:32:24She's in one of the movies. She was in Quentin's movie. I always lead with that. She's been in a bunch of my movies, but nobody gives a fuck about Kevin Smith's movie. She was in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, so I always lead with that. She was in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Believe me, she leads with that, too. She never leads with, like, yeah, I was in Jay and Silent Bob reboot. But she played Jay's daughter in Jay and Silent Bob reboot. What was the one with Jay? Was that who it was? Yoga Hosers. Yoga Hosers. The one that I got beat the fuck out of. I mean, you think I got beat up from putting a picture of myself crying on the internet.

1:32:50Yoga was just like, I got fucking, ooh, they were like, bend over, and it went in dry, so I'm dry. I remember AV Club was like, ew, Kevin Smith and Johnny Depp are gonna force us to watch a play date with their children. And it's like, bro, you don't have to watch it. But I've, you know, that was, I've been around the internet for a while, so I've watched the culture get like way more toxic. And here's the thing, for as long as I've been online, I've been online since 1996, right? So I remember the first troll, where it's like, what? yeah why would you spend time here and you probably got one of the first trolls ever legit 100 i remember there was a dude i reached out to a troll like to try to understand and this was a dude who was on um ain't it cool news and he had written some shit about me but it was incorrect that was the thing like somebody wrote something about me as their opinion what the fuck hurts but it's like you can't do anything but this dude had said something completely incorrect so i wrote to him because you click on their name and hit their email so i wrote to the dude i was like hey i'm Kevin Smith and you said this shit about me.

1:33:44I was like, I can't do anything about your opinion. But the one thing you said is factually untrue. So I just wanted to correct that if you're gonna go out and say things and stuff like that. The dude wrote back, I don't know who you are, but I know you're one of the names that if some, if I throw out on Ain't Cool News, a bunch of people will jump to your defense. And that's how I like to hang out at night. And that blew my fucking mind. This was in the year 2000, I wanna say. Maybe, yeah, because it was before I did Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which has the whole ending of them going around beating up people on the fucking internet from a message chat room.

1:34:13So I was there for, I'm not saying that was the first troll, but that was one of my first trolls. And he said he liked doing it because he liked the - That's how he spent his night. And that's a legit fucking response that a human being sent me. That's not a made up story. That's not like, I met a guy who said, that happened. And I was so fucking flabbergasted by that. I'm not anymore because I understand that's cheap entertainment for somebody. Like fuck going to the movies or fuck going out to dinner. It's like, fucking order some fucking pizza and let's have those mates and i'm just gonna jump online and be like this guy's chili or whatever and then watch people react and hit on that and shit so i've watched the internet get way more toxic and shit like that but at the same time as much as the internet gives everybody access to you who can like fucking shit on your day or try to shit in your mouth it also gives you access to the most wonderful people in the world who say these amazing things about you that keep you going and as previously spoken about i never know how to feel about myself because I'm broken.

1:35:10So it helps. I'm obviously part of the reason I do the job is because I like when people are like, good job. Like my whole career has been about trying to produce work. That's good enough for mom to put up on the fridge. Like when you get an A or B on the paper and she put that shit up on the fridge, the fridge is just the world at this point. And you hope that it's good enough that the paper goes up and gets noticed and shit. And you take a lot of slings and arrows, even if you like to do a thing, you know, so like there are the trolls who just go after you because it's entertaining to watch other people's blood in the water and shit like that.

1:35:42But then there are people that legitimately fucking hate you and what you do and hate watch you. Just the way Howard Stern used to have people who like, if you like Howard Stern, you listen for 10 minutes. If you hate Howard Stern, you listen for fucking 20. So I get it. And I've been around on the internet long enough where I know I am one of those figures and shit, but it always baffles me. I put up a fucking post on my Instagram today about, hey, I'm doing this podcast with my kid, beardless dickless me. And naturally, yeah, naturally. That's your daughter? That's my kid. That's Harley. She's a good kid, man.

1:36:12She's got a good head on her shoulders and shit. She was the one that asked me to go vegan because she was vegan. And after the heart attack, she was like, dad, like, please, like, just try it. It could help. Because the nutritionist in the hospital was like, you might want to consider going plant-based because 100 % blockage in your LAD, that's really bad. So my kid was like, can you please try it? And I was like, you know what? I'll do it for you. I'll try for a few months. And, you know, she saved my life, to be honest with you. But I also know my kid is part me, so she's very strategic. As a vegan, she was like, if I could flip this motherfucker, he'll be a big voice for the movement and shit like that.

1:36:44So she did. Can you still get erection if you're vegan or not? Do I get an erection? Do you still have like a... I'm hard now, son. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, fuck yeah. You get very hard. What would be the idea in not getting hard as a vegan? Not enough red meat in your diet? Yeah, something like that. If you don't have enough iron or whatever. I'm on blood thinners because of the heart attack. Does that help your wiener get harder? No. In fact, it's a little more challenging. Not challenging. It's just the hard-on you get ain't, it's workable. It's fuckable dick. Yeah. But it's not like, oh my God, this could fucking crack steel.

1:37:19Oh, yeah. You're Jackie Chan with like eight fucking things. I've never had that one. Oh, I do in the morning. That's the morning. Oh, fuck, dude. I wake up with a hard-on that's impressive. If I was a dick pic guy, that's when I'd be like, and put it online and shit like that. but it always goes to waste because my wife like she's like i don't fuck before noon so we've been together like 25 fucking years almost and uh or over and you know at this point i i i understand that i'm gonna wait until like one or two she's so i'm all i'm a little sad because i'm not saying she's missing out she ain't missing shit she's fucked me enough she knows she you know i was saying before i tell people all the time like you can achieve your goals you just have to modify your expectations.

1:37:57I was like, you know, my wife, I always use my wife as an example. I was like, Jennifer didn't want to marry a guy that fucking looked like me. Like, I saw the dude she dated in high school. She was a cheerleader. She dated fucking football players. Your wife did? Oh, wow. But when we met, she was like, all right, he ain't my ideal, but like, I can work with this. So she modified her expectations and we've been together for fucking centuries. So if you modify, some people are like, that's lowering. I'm like, no, no, no. modifying your expectations you can be happy if you just modify what you expect and shit do you have sex under the covers when you're married or on top of the covers under and i'm also a shirt on guy i've never taken my shirt off during sex you take your shirt off during sex you look like here i don't that much you're one of those dudes who probably you're making out and it's like in the movies and shit you make out and then you push back you take your shirt off like that's a part of the seduction i walk out i could never do that if i did that and step back took my shirt off my tits came out they'd be like oh let me slurp on those little fucking hammocks you take them you take your shirt off don't you no sometimes i will sometimes i won't i'll walk out of the room backwards though because i don't like i don't like people seeing my butt i guess are you serious so i'll kind of walk huh not that i think it is i don't know it's your least attractive feature i think it's fine but it's like after everyone's already the situation's gotten all coming shit and everybody's on a different plane all together and their senses are coming back you're like they see my ass i'm fucked well it turns out you were just fucked at that point they could see your ass job's done son yeah but nobody can see your butt while you're making love to him it's just the way it's all how God did it if that is not the title of your biography I object nobody can see your butt if you're making love to him the Theo Vaughn story and other whimsical notions by Theo Vaughn yeah but it's like you think your ass is your worst feature so you walk out of the room dick first where you're like we're dick backwards so you're like look, keep looking there.

1:39:52Don't look at this. Yeah, just like, never mind the man. Pay attention to the man. No attention to the man behind the curtain. Your ass is the Wizard of Oz. Yeah. Your dick is what they all see. Your ass is the actual wizard. Oh, yeah. Pulling levers and shit. My wiener's the cowardly lion. Dude. If I only had an... Blood thinners, yeah. But to go back to the original question, you can be vegan and get the job. Okay. Very easily. I don't come across... I mean, I guess I know vegans, but I don't know. They don't tell you when you meet them. You do. What I love about you, Theo, is your act is like, I don't know a lot of things, but you're one of the smartest people I've seen doing this job.

1:40:25You think so? You're smart, but more importantly, you're clever. Clever goes a lot further than smart in this world. I am not smart. I've been clever. I don't even think I'm 100 % clever all the time, but I think I'm very clever about what to do about being Kevin Smith for a living. So I'm myopically clever on one very small plane, which has kind of worked out for me. Managing yourself well. Yes, but I think you're smart. I think you're way smarter than you like to let on and shit. You're like Jay. Like, Jay is also like, oh, no, nothing, but I'm like, motherfucker, like, I'm, don't play me. Like, I write your character.

1:40:55I know what your intelligence level really is and stuff. And while the Jay character is based on who Jay was when he was 16 years old, he's far smarter than that. And also, to be fair, far more responsible. Hands down, the best father I've ever met in my entire life. He's a wonderful fucking dad to, like, two children. Shocking, because he was, like, terrible to himself for most of his life and stuff. Yeah, I met him at some meetings and stuff. Yeah, he's, fuck, you want to talk about that? He is, he's very, we did a whole podcast for years and we still kind of quasi do Jay and Silent Bob get old which is fucking he's coming up I think on his 14th anniversary of being sober and the podcast was predicated on like we go to bars and do this live show where he's the only everyone else is drunk he's the only sober person there and was all about keeping him sober so we would sit there and tell this story about one time I did this so it was kind of like going to a very fun a meeting where everyone else was drinking except the guy who was witnessing and shit like And we got over 100, 200 episodes out of that.

1:41:51Wow. It was crazy. And we toured off of that. Like Jason from the movies, he didn't really make a lot of money being in Kevin Smith films. You don't make money being in Kevin Smith films. You don't make money making them either. But he made enough money to buy a house because of Jay and Silent Bob. Awesome. So he was, we were clever with the podcast, but you're smart. This is fucking smart. So I know you're smart. Yeah, I think I, sometimes I think I'm afraid to try and like, I feel like sometimes it's just hard for me to get my information and how I feel. It's hard to get it clear from my brain to my mouth sometimes.

1:42:25Is that right? And I think I get afraid to speak up on certain things. I don't know. I saw you talk about Bernie Sanders, and you seemed very well. I literally watched that for a few minutes. That was fun, dude. I could not have done that. I could talk to people, but I'd be like, Like, Bernie, did you ever see Clark's? Like, that's where my life begins and ends and shit. But you could literally sit there and have a political conversation. I'm politically not astute. Yeah, me either. So I don't think I could hold that conversation. But you did, and you sounded intelligent. Thanks, man. And I don't mean, like, he sounds smart, but you represent him.

1:43:01Like, that's why when you're like, I don't know nothing. That's bullshit. Like, I couldn't have done, and this ain't me kissing ass or licking knob. I didn't watch the whole interview. But for the few minutes I watched, I was like, this guy's fucking smart. that made me happy to come because Jordan Jason Mewes' wife she runs our business she was like oh fucking I was like I gotta go I'm going she's like where are you going I was like I'm going with Theo Bond's podcast she goes oh fucking she goes that's right I love him I was like can you fuck with him and she goes oh you think he's so funny and shit like that what's her name Jordan Monsanto that's sweet of her man yeah I think well he cares about some of the same stuff I care about our business manager I'm gonna go with her I was like I'm gonna take a picture of this I'll see his face and be like we're doing shit wrong i know people in the audience like stop talking about but you don't know you don't know kids i know what that means i'm like this guy's figured the fuck out man i want to do you have a network or is it just your show no just us really yeah i it's just if you ever start a network i'll be on it you will fucking heartbeat are you kidding me fucking get i'm kidding we'll plug you in in the other room dude dude i'll never leave that much free celsius and shit i mean he's got his own place like i came into an office like you'll never sleep i do my shit at home in a spare room like i started in my kitchen man and when now we just have to have a place for people to be at to work and what is that what do you mean like so while the show is not going on you need people in an office yeah just the producers just so they can um be around uh so crazy like the infrastructure that like we don't have much we have three three yeah a huge operation yeah but yeah it's a place like this unless they're giving you this place free you gotta pay no they're not did you um if you're i never want to hear this i'm not a smart person shit ever again what was that jay you and muse in a movie bro never mind david spade i ain't trying to throw him under the bus but fucking you and jay in a movie you could be his brother oh fuck shit hold on this is happening in real time what will we do i wonder want it do you want to come we're doing a movie next year early next year jay and silent bob store wars which is about they have a dispensary and then somebody opens a dispensary across the street and they're like they're opposites in every way and it's they battle for the whole movie you legit i'm not just saying this because i'm on the podcast but like your vibe is very jay like number one i know this would make my boss happy like jordan be like yes bitch you come in and play fucking jay's brother who's never been in a movie before jordan monsanto the person that's that's jordan uh jay's wife jordan who runs our company and shit she produces the movies she does yeah she's been our producer for years.

1:45:27She's been producing since like Tusk. Wow, she's really smart? Fuck. Smarter than both you and I. And I know how smart you are. As previously said. You wrote me in. She ain't got one of those. You wrote this character. I'm not even, I'm fictional. I'm telling you, bro. You playing Jay's brother makes sense. Wow, really, dude? A hundred percent. I mean, look, I ain't offering you no great chicks. Being in a Kevin Smith movie helps nobody's fucking career. No, I just heard he doesn't make any money. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's true. And that's their daughter, Logan. And then they have a little boy now named Lucian.

1:45:54He wasn't alive when we did this picture. He came afterwards. That was Clerks 3. So yes. Yeah, so it's dope beef. They got two dispensaries that are having dope beef, basically. Yeah. That's cool. It's a war. Yeah, we need that kind of fucking shit. That's a comedy, but it ain't no studio comedy. Like, no studio. How much does it cost to make a movie like that? What's kind of like your highest budget? That'll be$10. If I can get, I can get between$8 to$10 for a Jay and Silent Bob type thing, Clerks 3 thing. The 430 movie, which is coming out September 13th, presumably that's what we're here to talk about.

1:46:27But I just came for the sales. No, I want to talk a little bit more about that time. We don't have to. But the 430 movie cost$3 million. Wow. Saban financed that. And was it Saban? Saban. Saban. Have they financed some of your other films too? They did Jane, Silent Bob Reboot. Okay. Years and years ago, they also did the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Did they? And how much can you make a real return on a movie like that? you can make a return you can make your money back and make a little scratch yeah um i think that's i think i can stay in the business for as long as i for three decades when i'm well past my fucking past due date because i could always pivot to inexpensive so a lot of people are like well it's got to be fucking 20 million i can't do it i'm the other guy where i'm like oh i could do it for three yeah whether we could do it for three or not it's like we'll get there we'll cram it into that fucking number.

1:47:18I wouldn't want to be anything fancy. Yeah, and the privilege of making a movie, everyone don't get to do that. It's a weird fucking proposition where you say to somebody, can you give me a lot of money to make pretend? Most people are like, just make pretend by themselves for free and shit. And you're like, I can't quite do it. And I realize my job is full of shit, man. It's a pack of lies. Basically, what I try to do in life is artificially capture a moment that happened to me that made my head or heart feel something so overwhelmingly wonderful that I was like, if I could fucking capture that and put it in a movie and show people how it felt, I bet you other people would identify with that.

1:47:56So it was like... Like Bridges of Madison County? I mean, I guess, absolutely, to some degree, right? If that was your speed or whatever the fuck. But like the idea of... Like I was on set, and I guess it was because 430 movie is the first movie I've not made. 430 is cool because it's like in the 80s or 90s? 80s, it takes place. Set in the 80s, 1986. Yeah, dude, it just had this free when you couldn't, when your imagination, where if you wondered if a girl cared about you, all you could do is lay on your back in your fucking room floor, listening to Nirvana or something. A mixtape that you put together over and over.

1:48:32And just wondering and praying and pining and just dry humping the carpet that this woman cared about you. Shy of dry humping the carpet, which I ain't against, but that was never a part of my repertoire. Um, it's you've exactly, you've nailed the feeling of me trying to capture that fucking feeling. Essentially. That's what I do in movies. We weren't that rich. Oh my God. Were you rich? No, we weren't. But I heard about shag carpet and I thought that's what you were supposed to do. You heard about it. Yeah. Did you have carpet period? Oh yeah. We had wall to wall. You did? Like the cheap shit.

1:49:02Yeah. Not, not, you know what? Yeah. Rugs are expensive. Carpeting is less expensive. You could pee on our carpet. Yeah. And others did on our. Yeah. Protest. And sometimes. Capturing the moment though. being a liar for a living and shit like that. That is what making movies is, is all about. That's why I like podcasting because it ain't a lie. Basically everything's true. Like you just sit down, start talking, having conversations. Like one day someone will try, maybe not this particular moment, but, and I've done it in movies. You try to capture a podcast in a movie, like in Tusk, we have them podcasting and stuff.

1:49:38And once again, that's an artificial snapshot of a moment that made me feel fucking absolute joy. And then you give that moment to the movie and then the movie goes out to the audience and the moment stops being just yours. And then for the rest of your life, you interact with that movie. Periodically, it comes up and you're watching it and you see this like wonderful, this approximation, um, this half-assed approximation of some amazing thing that had happened to you. And you go, Oh shit, that's right. Like that was mine. But then I shared it with the art form and stuff. When it comes to preparing for a movie, what are some pitfalls that uh people can avoid um it might be little things it might just be energy being focused having enough time like honestly the biggest pitfall i mean you'll never have enough time you'll never have enough money i don't give a shit what your budget is like whether you have three million or three hundred every filmmaker every producer always has the same complaint which is like not enough time not enough money and even if you've got more money you think that'll ameliorate it it just winds up being the same fucking problem economy of scale so don't worry about that shit this is what you need to think about i think primarily um be prepared in as much as like if you're starting for the first time you've never done this shit before obviously this is an advice for people who do it for a living let's say you're a first timer rehearse the fuck out of that shit like a month on clerks mall rats chasing amy rehearse for a month before we went near a set that way your take ratio is going to be real low now some people would be like, what does that matter in the age of fucking digital video?

1:51:09Back when you were shooting film? Yes, it was expensive to process film. Time is money on a movie fucking set. So if you can accomplish it in one take, fucking move on. Like the story of my life, and I've told it before publicly, so this might not be news to some, but how I've been able to keep doing what I've been doing for 30 years, if people are like, I hate him, why does he keep fucking, how come he still works? This is why. I don't strive for excellence. I ain't Chris fucking Nolan. Believe me every critic will tell you that and shit chris nolan strives for excellence i from the beginning of my career from clerks forward was never like let's make it fucking perfect if i was striving for perfection i don't think i've ever made my first film yet i'd still be sitting there frozen what will it be like good enough will take you very far good enough has taken me 30 years so on the set of clerks we'd be shooting i'd be like cut um all right that's good enough let's move on let's do something else good enough has gotten me here has gotten me all the way to this fucking chair.

1:52:00Good enough will get you as far as you need to go. Now, you know, that's probably not winner talk, right? Like fucking, if you want to win an Oscar, you got to leave it on the table. You got to fucking like make people hurt. Fucking make those movies where like Leonardo's fighting a fucking bear and shit and fucking make people sit in the snow to do it because everyone's got to be miserable in order for this to read and shit like that. I ain't that guy. I ain't that committed to it. I just like to make pretend, maybe get a little money for it and shit. so I can't go in authentically like that where it's like oh fucking everything it's gonna be perfection at the cost of everybody and there are directors who do that and I respect them I guess a little bit I wouldn't do that to my cast and crew but like those movies are fucking successful because they've got a vision and a drive and the passion of a filmmaker if I were ever trying to make one of those things it wouldn't happen number one I have the talent Number two, I don't have that kind of patience and shit.

1:52:52Number three, I can't do that to other people. I want people leaving my set going, I had a good-ass fucking time. That's how I keep my budgets low. Crew comes back, and they'll work for fucking scale. Because they're like, look, you don't pay a lot, but fucking it's a good time on a set. You're going to enjoy yourself. You're going to have fucking happy memories and shit like that. Good enough gets me to the set. If I've rehearsed enough before we shoot, and I'm on set, one, two takes tops. And I'm like, good enough, moving on. And that time all adds up. That's fucking money. So strive for perfection, I guess, at some point in your career.

1:53:24I honestly never have, and I've just been doing it for 30 years. And some people out there, I'm sure the letterbox crowd, would be disgusted by that thought. Like, oh, he doesn't even fucking try. Clearly I try. I've been doing this for 30 fucking years. Well, you show up. That's trying. I don't try. And beyond show up, I deliver. I just don't fucking make everyone's life miserable to fucking deliver something that's like, I've got a vision. It's like, I got an idea where we're going and shit. Let's all have a good time doing it. Otherwise, what was the fucking point? if people on a set are miserable when you make pretend for a living everybody has fucking failed and you shouldn't be doing this like it should be fun it's making pretend for a living and i understand you know there are some people like no man art is pain and it's not really this is this is an art form don't get me wrong but like doesn't have to be fucking painful it's very cathartic and a lot of folks can't do that fucking pivot like it's gotta be this and i don't believe in that so i'm the guy that's just like that's good enough let's move it on every one of my movies is good enough don't have to be great and shit i saw somebody the other day on twitter was like it's got like one or two really brilliant ideas in his movie and the rest is just some fucking horse shit and i'm like yeah i mean that's it you don't have to keep watching if you don't like that kind of thing but i'm lucky i got one or two good ideas in the horse shit like especially 30 years into my career oh it's fascinating man because if you're always aiming for perfection then but a lot of times if you showing up and delivering and good enough, because most people don't even go that far, the fear of not being prepared for perfection prevents them sometimes from taking the step.

1:54:54Where it's the fear of not being able to achieve perfection. I just accept early on, it's like, I'm never going to be fucking perfect. And you're never the dictator of this anyway. And I don't mean the dictator like a guy or an autocrat. You don't get to dictate whether or not that thing is what it is that you say it is. You make a thing with one intention, the audience is going and tell you what that fucking thing is, what it means and shit like that. This is a story I tell an awful lot. So if you've heard this in another place, I apologize. But when I was making the 430 movie, and this ain't to bring it back to that, it's relevant to this conversation.

1:55:26I was shooting a scene with the three boys, they're in the car and they're just like fucking goofing off while they're driving, dancing while they drive, playing Chaka Khan's I Feel For You. So they were, for direction, I went over to the vehicle and I was like, kids, you know, you're just goofing around and dance, whatever the fuck, do whatever you want, just as long as you make it iconic. And I walked away and that fucked all of their heads up. I had no idea. Like Nick, who plays Bernie in the movie was like, that's your fucking direction? Make it iconic? That's a little fucking pressure, don't you think?

1:55:58And I was like, well, no. Oh, then I realized I have the benefit of experience. I've been doing this for 30 years. I was like, what I mean by that is that every decision that you're making here in real time is like dropping a stone in the water and watching the ripple effect or the butterfly effect. Like it's crazy what people years from now will concentrate on about this weird little moment in the movie that you're just like, what should we do? And I'm like, oh, just make it iconic. And I mean that because people will be watching this scene forever and it will hopefully connect with them, even if it's somebody who wasn't alive in 1986, a current day teenager, who could see that fucking sense, that joy that's in the scene.

1:56:41So these things we do in the moment, like this very bit passes and it's just a fucking Kevin Smith movie, but I promise you, this movie is somebody's, it's gonna be somebody's fucking life preserver. There's gonna be their buoy that's gonna keep them fucking drowning. And I know that because I've been doing it 30 years. And I was at the Dallas Fan Expo like last year and a guy came up to me, He was like in his maybe early 30s, late 20s, early 30s. And he had a copy of Mallrats on VHS. Very well-worn copy and shit. I was like, holy shit, look at this fucking ancient piece of Americana. And how many times you watch this?

1:57:11He goes, a lot. I said, who am I signing to? He goes, I want you to make it out to my son. Gave me his son's name. I was like, what's the story there? You need to get a few minutes to have this exchange. And my man rocks my fucking world. And he goes, um. I'm gonna give this to my son when he's older. He's gone. This is the movie that saved my life. And I'm like, thank you. And you hear that a lot I'm sure you've heard that too where people like bro your show saved my life or blah blah blah Sometimes I'm driving you're the difference between me going crazy and not or I saw your stand-up special It made me fucking laugh and that fucking I needed that on that day because I was circling the fucking drain So in this business, we have experience with people that perhaps overly Express it by saying something like oh my god fucking your shit saved my life and stuff So I've heard that sentiment and I know how to receive it.

1:57:57And I'm like, oh my God, thank you. That's so kind. And he goes, no, I'm serious. He's going, my father used to beat the shit out of me. Every day after school, I'd come home and he would mercilessly, relentlessly beat me to the point of fucking near dying. Wow. He's like, and then I would crawl to my bedroom, bloody mess, and I would close the bedroom door and I'd put in mall rats and I would escape to the mall with TS and Brody and Jay and Silent Bob. And he's going, and that was my happy place. And that's how I survived living with my father. through this fucking tape. He goes, now, I have a son, and he's gone, and I would never be the piece of shit that my fucking father was to me my whole life.

1:58:34And I wanna give my kid this tape when he's old enough so he understands he could survive anything, because his father survived the absolute worst, and this was what he clung to. Wow. And naturally, I gave him a big hug, and I was like, no, dude, you survived that shit. Like, fucking, this is just a movie that might've helped, but like, when you share of yourself like that, and you go off and make, and you know, It don't matter what it is. When it comes to movies, they have this weird impact. It doesn't matter what we do when it comes to this show, when it comes to your live shows. But particularly when you make something like a movie, people cherish that kind of thing.

1:59:04Because you're in and out. There's an engagement period. 90 minutes to two hours is gonna take you on a ride and then bring you back and leave you where you were. So everyone knows what to expect in that. And over the course of their lifetime, they've turned to movies in times of trial. Oh yeah, I watch Family Man every year to feel good. So you create that and you become that for somebody else. So movie you're talking about making with spade. I guarantee you one day somebody comes up to you and tells you a story as fucking heartbreaking yet as wonderful as that, which is like something you didn't even give that much thought to.

1:59:37Like if my man came up to you, he was like dogma saved my life. I'd be like, I understand it, man. Like fucking, I worked hard on that. And that was, my movie is pretty fucking profound on some levels and shit. Yes. It has a lot of butt fucking jokes, but I like to balance it out. But when somebody tells you like all rats saved their life, You're like, I wasn't thinking of that when I made that movie. Do you think 25-year-old Kevin Smith was going, this is going to save somebody's life. Hold on. Jay, get ready to fucking swing me across the fucking mall. You don't think about that. So when I told the kids, make it iconic, that's what it comes down to.

2:00:07Even the things you're not thinking about as being important, you think are dismissive or just, oh, it's just a moment in a movie. Someone will find that as the buoy that keeps them from fucking drowning. So every moment then is kind of important. but isn't that the lesson of life in general? Every moment is kind of important, man. Like, you know, when I was in the nut house, they say all sorts of simplistic shit, which is fucking really helpful. You can put it on a towel and stuff in a kitchen, aphorism or whatever the fuck. And what they say, every day is a gift. That's why it's called the present.

2:00:37And it's kind of true. Like, it's absolutely true. Like, so often we're so fucking bored as a species that we don't think about, like, you're only gonna get so many breaths, you're only gonna get so many heartbeats and shit like that. And I always tell my wife after the heart attack, I was like, I'm living on borrowed time. And she's like, well, that's fucking macabre. And I was like, no, I'm painfully aware. We're all living on borrowed time. I'm just fucking well aware of it. Act accordingly. Do you think like as a creator, do you ever want to invent something? Did you ever also think about inventing something, but you didn't do it?

2:01:06Because a lot of times people who are creative think about things like, has there ever been one? Not an invention like fucking Flobie or something like that. Right, but anyone that kind of stood out in your head or something, because I thought like. I've been trying to make this movie Moose Jaws for 10 years. One day I'm going to get, it's going to happen. and I'm going to find the money for it. And eventually I'm going to get to the place where I'm like, you know what? I'll just put up my house. I ain't got Theo Vaughn money and shit, but I got a nice house where I could probably live in that Celsius cooler.

2:01:30I will. I saw my house live there. I'm like, honey, get ready. Cause who like, yeah, I always say like who invented the swimming pool or whatever. Like I always think about who invented certain stuff, you know, or like, and then I think if I would want to have an invention, like I thought of, Oh, I used to think there was a dog collar or whatever that if, cause they had a lot of howling dogs by us when I was a kid. And so if it howled, it would help the dog learn how to howl more melodically or whatever, like a musically, you know? So eventually the howls. So it's not just like, oh, it's like, oh, there's somebody to howl with.

2:02:04Because they always harmonize when there's more than one. So for the lonely dog, it's almost like having a pocket pal. Like Bell Biv Dog Bo or something. Like a Meso-Spaniel or whatever. It's a first draft for a name, but I like where you're going with it. Okay, good, yeah. But wouldn't it be beautiful if you're laying there and one of them house you like these motherfuckers, but then they're like Totally they're all fucking singing in unison and shit So I thought if you could do a group collar like for a neighborhood or small region I thought that that would be pretty cool and then you and then Fucking they're the next Nirvana three neighborhood dogs that just got together and have these harmonized collars People like he's singing exactly how I fucking feel.

2:02:41I don't know what he's saying, but that's how I feel That's a beautiful thing about art. You don't even have to know the lyrics to a song by dog Nirvana You just feel it when you play it. It's why if I was a, if I wish I was in a different art form, if I was a singer, I can open up my mouth, sing a note and you'd know how I felt. That'd be me, my self expression. If I was a painter, I could take a blank canvas, put some color on it, you'd know how I felt. But I'm a director. I chose directing as an art form, as the dumbest art form, because that's where you say shit like, I need to self express, give me$20 million in Ben Affleck's stat.

2:03:10It's not the best art form for a guy like me. I always felt like me in film was like me trying, like I took Spanish in high school, four years of Spanish. Oh, yeah. But very minimal. Un poco Spanish. So I always think of me as a filmmaker, as like somebody who took four years of high school Spanish, you know, got C's to D's, and then tries to go to Spain and passes as a local. Oh, I see what you're saying. Like visually speaking, visual storytelling is not my first language. Like this shit? If movies were this, like just two dudes sitting down and talking? Yeah, you'd be like Jerry Garcia. I'd be Spielberg's son.

2:03:43Oh, fuck. Jerry Garcia, man. I'd be making that Theo Vaughn money and shit. You've gotten, yeah, but did you ever think of an invention? I just think creative people always wonder if they think of inventions, you know? I don't. I'm not creative. I guess you've struck the nerve. I'm not creative because I would think of an invention if I did, but I never - I doubt that. I know that's not true. I'm too self-involved. My head's up my own ass. You've created a lot of stuff. Yeah, but just about me and my world and shit. Very myopic. So no, I've never thought like, ooh, this invention would be good for others.

2:04:11I've never like done something that's like, gotta be a better way. You've gotten to direct a lot of, you got to direct George Carlin. You've gotten to direct Ben Affleck. Anything that stands out to you about talented men like that in general or talented actors in general? Anything that they all have in common or something that you notice about people that are able to grab people's attention? That's a cool question. I like it. Let me see. Is there such a thing as like, that person's got it? I do believe in that. What are the kids called today? Riz? Riz, yeah. Aura. Aura, that's the new word? Thank you.

2:04:45Yeah, I think anyway, I'm not sure. Anytime I get a new word, I dial my clock back a little bit. Aura, kids. But let's just go with the Riz, which was like, I don't know, 10 minutes ago or whatever the fuck. The ones that got the Riz, those are the ones you know about. Like, they work a lot because they've got this, like, natural charisma where it's like, camera loves them. They know how to be exactly in front of a camera. You know, somebody like Brad Pitt, born to be in front of a camera. You know, and one could argue, like, well, over time, he learned how to be in front of a camera. I'm sure maybe, but like, number one, he's attractive to look at.

2:05:14In the movies, we like to look at attractive people and stuff. Number two, he seems very relaxed and natural. So you never like, he's acting. It almost seems like he's fucking underacting a lot of times. He's just not phoning it in, but he ain't trying, man. You don't get the feeling that this thirsty motherfucker's really going for it. Just there. And he eats all the time in the movies. He's always just sitting there fucking eating and shit. Casual as fuck. So that dude's got like, dripping with charisma. That's why he's a goddamn movie star. so all of them when you reach that level like where you're casting people who've been in other things that are famous they're all fucking they all got the riz they're all jedis like at a certain point you start working with complete jedis across the board it's just a you know a fucking matter of how jedi are they how fucking powerful are they and stuff like everyone could do it but like some people are exceptional so michael parks the guy that was in red state for us and tusk he's the crazy old man in red state and tusk he passed on a rest in power um he that dude was like brilliant the finest actor i've ever met my best actor ever met in my life he he gives an eight minute hate speech in red state that like i'm not going to say it almost convinces you but like you forget that it's an a vile fucking speech that he's giving because it's delivered so incredibly well and through the southern pitois that he chose and stuff it was he that guy has had it He's passed now.

2:06:38But, yes, to answer the question, absolutely. I think it's, there's other words for it. People, you always say, they got it. But for lack of a better description, it would be the Riz. They got the Riz ready to go, man. Like, extra. Do you think it's kind of gross how the media, like, the media always takes pictures of Ben Affleck looking sad, you know, or trying to make him look sad? That's only because the public's interested in it. Like, if they did it once and nobody clicked on it, they wouldn't take, they wouldn't fucking run that story again. But people find it fascinating where they're like, why is that guy who must be so rich and has it all?

2:07:09Why does he look like that? And you got to think about this. But they know he struggles with addiction, right? They know that that's happening. So, like, isn't it grossing at that point to if you know somebody has like because alcoholism. Do I think it's fair? No. But like he knew the job was dangerous when he took it. He's in a high profile public position. Unfortunately, that comes along with it. You can't just sign up for movie star worldwide global fame and go like, yeah, but nobody can take pictures of me when I'm not in a good mood. Right? Like that's part of the rule. Like if you go out in the world, we live in a world of cameras.

2:07:41That's going to happen. But it only keeps happening because they did it once and people clicked on it and found it interesting and then started making memes about it. So then people keep feeding the beast. So I, you know, do I think it's fair? Well, let's break it. Let's break it down like this. I'll break it down like, like a Catholic. you know, Ben's wife, Ben's life is pretty wonderful from the outside, it looks like. And even from the inside, knowing him, it's pretty wonderful. And Ben's gotten to see a lot of his dreams come true. If the cost is every once in a while, somebody's like, he looks fucking sad when he's drinking Dunkin' Donuts.

2:08:18Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, you gotta let that shit go. And now that's easy for me to say as a guy who like still finds himself dipping into the comments going, what are they saying about me? which is fucking recipe for disaster. Ben is not that guy. As far as I know, Ben has never had a social media account. I mean, he's had a social media account, but somebody else fed into it. He was not the guy posting. So he ain't looking for that shit. He's not real public and stuff, but it comes along with the job. If you're going to be the guy who, you know, you were one half of the Goodwill Hunting Boys that the whole world fell in love with.

2:08:49You took your moms to the Oscars? Come on. There's nothing cuter about that. They're asshole kids and whatnot. And, you know, a lot of - Man, the Patriots won so much. And the fervency that goes along with that. Yeah, fuck him, you're right. Not fuck him. Yeah, sorry, buddy. It just comes along with it. So if you don't want that anymore, give up the other thing. Yeah, not fucking you. Unfortunately, it's a byproduct of the job that you've chosen. Like, you know, if Ben was a teacher in Cambridge, he'd go out, smoke a cigarette, drink Dunkin' Donuts, and look like he's having an existential crisis all he wants, and nobody would give a fuck.

2:09:26Yeah, it's true. because he's Ben Affleck, people have this idea that like, he should be happier than that. And it's like, come on, man. Like people are like, think about like, I live in a world of three act structure and I realized it has really fucked me up for my entire life. Three act structure is movies. Yeah. And they always have an ending that's generally on the happy side, but there's an ending and a conclusion. And when those credits roll, those characters don't have to fucking go back to work on Monday and just have a normal ass fucking day. Or then you see them fail or you see that couple that fell in love, fucking like fall apart and shit like that you don't see that movies are happy snapshots moments and stuff like that so most people think like somebody like affleck is like oh my god this guy's got it made he must be happy every fucking second of the day it's possible oh i don't think fucking happy i think he's probably just a regular dude i just think it's 100 if like that there's websites and shit if somebody is a has you know suffers from like alcoholism or something they know that they're, you know, that there's something kind of all there's, it's a condition that they would then do that.

2:10:28It just seems egregious to me. Like I wouldn't do that to somebody like, oh, this person's has a sickness. Let me show them looking depressed or something. It just seems. Neither would I. Generally, I don't engage in that sort of thing, but I just want to take a moment to shout you out for this. That's very sweet of you, Theo. Like that's, that's most people go in the other direction. People love a train wreck, right? Nobody goes to the train station to see the train come in fucking on time unless you're getting on the fucking train. That ain't interesting. But with a train wreck, oh, fuck. Let's go look at the fucking bodies, as George Carlin would say.

2:11:00So it's nice to hear you go like, I don't like that. Like, you got a line where you're like, this guy's got drinking problems or is that drinking problems? This might make him drink again. That's human to think that way. The rest of the world don't think that way. The rest of the world looks at that guy and they go, fuck him. He's got it all. Yeah. Now, if the fucking Pats are winning, fuck him. I know. I know there are levels and shit like that. Are you a sports guy? I am a little bit. I got two more questions. Did you, I know you're, did you. I apparently have way more questions. I'm like, are you a sports guy?

2:11:27Did you go to Stan Lee's funeral? I did not go to Stan Lee's funeral. Did you think about it? I don't know if you guys were even close or anything. We were very close. I went to Stan Lee's final birthday party, which was in December, the few months before he passed away. Or right before, you know, or he was 95 and he almost made it to 96. So it was his 95th birthday party. I still have pictures on my phone. When they buried him, I didn't get invited. I'm not saying like, oh, fuck them. They didn't invite me. But there was no like, hey, you could come or anything. But we were fucking close, man.

2:12:00Like in the last year of his life, nobody was close to him because the situation, people kept him away from people. He was kind of, there was an elder abuse situation going on. Yeah, that party right there. It was December 28th, 2017. Happy birthday. And then he died a few months after that. So, but the last year of his life, it was tough to be around him. And I don't mean tough to be around him because like, what an asshole. I mean, you couldn't get near him. The people who were kind of in charge of him kept everyone away. I couldn't text him anymore, even call him and shit like that. So I didn't have access toward the end.

2:12:34It was a sad ending for Stan. But I realized like toward the end, we did a commercial, an Audi commercial when Age of Ultron was coming out. And the premise of the commercial was like the Stan Lee school of cameo acting. So he would put on like Thor's helmet and be like, this is acting. And then he'd put on like a random general helmet. He's like, this is cameo acting because Stan did a lot of cameos and shit. So the whole spot is that. And then he gets in an Audi and drives away. And it's a class. I'm in the class. Jason Mewes is in the class. Michael Rooker's in the class. I might have seen it.

2:13:07Yeah, it ran like years and years ago. So we shoot this spot and I was hanging out with Stan all day. And then we're doing the last shot where car goes past Lou Ferrigno hitchhiking, like at the end of the Incredible Hulk. I saw him at the post office once. Lou Ferrigno? Yeah. Awesome, dude. Nice. Very nice to me. So Stan's like body man, business guy, financial guy, came to set to like watch the end of the show. And he was hanging out by monitor and we were chit-chatting. And he was like, oh, I love this stuff. I love production. He's going, Stan's so happy. He always has a good time hanging out with you.

2:13:42And I was like, oh, I always like being around Stan. It just seemed like a nice thing to say. And then the guy like fucking lethal is a heart attack. He goes, you know, he thinks that you like a son. Fucking like I was like, what? And then it occurred to me that like I always thought he was just being nice to me because we put him in mall rats. Like he was just being Stan, political. He was just like, hey, everybody. Everybody's fucking grandpa and shit. But he legit actually like liked me as a person. and, and, um, yeah, when I see that picture, actually, I thought of that for a second, kind of, he taught me a lot.

2:14:14He taught me a father, son vibe. He taught me how to be me for a living. He didn't sit me down and be like, this is a beauty, but this is a dude who like, you know, it was one thing to be creative, right? Like he co-created most of the Marvel universe. And, and yes, you know, of course he worked great artists like Steve Ditko and, um, Jack Kirby and whatnot, but like the imagination that went into it, this was a man who wanted to write the great American novel. Like I remember talking to him interviewing at one point, he was like, well, I really want to write the great American novel. And I was like, Stan, you did like, you just didn't do it as a book.

2:14:47You did it with the Marvel universe. It's, it's our modern fucking mythology, but he wasn't aiming for that. It's just something he did for money and backed into. And then later on the culture shifted like into, into his favor because people like comics, but he was like fucking banging the symbols for comics. Since I was a kid, I remember my father like He called me out one morning. I was getting ready for school. He goes, get inside. Spider-Man's dad is on TV. And it was on Good Morning America talking to like one of the earliest hosts of before even Joan London on Good Morning America about comic books.

2:15:20And here was a grown ass adult man on television talking about something I was passionate about, something that I knew very well and loved. So I respected the dude right away. I knew his voice even before I saw him and even before I heard his voice and like Spider-Man and his amazing friends in every episode because he would write that Stan's soapbox. And in it, he was a salesman. He was an artist, don't get me wrong. And he co-created all those characters. But that don't mean shit. You could make a million books and characters and shit. If you don't know how to sell yourself and you sell your work, nobody's gonna hear about it.

2:15:51And that guy, a lot of people are like, he took all the credit on himself. I'm not here to address that. All I know is he pushed the medium of comics so far. He was out there in the mainstream. He would go to colleges before anyone respected comic books. When colleges were like, these books, you know, 10, 20 years after Stan wrote these stories, he would be invited to come proselytize, talk about the art form, the emerging art form. And one of the only true American art forms is the fucking comic book, the superhero comic book. So this was a man who was like out there doing the work, like building the fucking rails upon which billion dollar fucking steamships move now.

2:16:30I mean, Deadpool doesn't happen if that doesn't happen. Exactly. And he didn't create Deadpool, nor did he create Wolverine. But he created the playground in which those two characters were created by other creators in the Marvel Universe, comics and stuff. So yeah, I miss him. I learned a lot from him. It's like you can't expect other people to love your shit unless you love it. First, you got to love it the best. That's what I was saying a long time ago. You're the only audience you can guarantee to satisfy. So if you can keep your budget low, real low, and it don't matter, go for it and stuff.

2:17:01but just don't expect the whole world's going to come. Modify your expectations like my wife. So the 4.30 movie, it's about... It's about 85 minutes long. And it touches on like young love, kind of that first moment. Oh, it's dripping with fucking young love. God, you remember that? You remember going to your first date movie or not? At that movie theater, absolutely. The whole movie's about that first date with my high school girlfriend, like Kim Lockhart, who Kim Garvey now, she married. but the the flick is set at the movie theater Smart Castle Cinemas that I have with my friends in Jersey in Atlantic Highlands you can go to it and go see movies there we do events there all the time SmartCastleCinemas.com look for events it's in Red Bank in Atlantic Highlands New Jersey not far from Red Bank but in that theater hanging up like behind the ticket counter is a note that I wrote to Kim Kim Loughran wrote to me when we were in high school and it said Kevin will you take me to see Dirty Dancing at the Atlantic Highlands Twin Cinema this Thursday or whatever.

2:18:06Love, Kim. So it's hanging up at the theater because the note was about that theater. And I grew up and bought that fucking theater with my friends and kept it alive and stuff. So the movie is aching with star-crossed first love. And I remember to talk about it, I'd read a review for Pretty in Pink when I was a kid. And it was in the Asbury Park Press, our local paper. And I could never figure out who wrote it. It wasn't the person who reviewed films locally. So it was a wire service review, but of pretty in pink, they said, sometimes you just want to enjoy a movie where the biggest stakes are whether or not the kids are going to go to the prom.

2:18:42And that stayed with me since that fucking movie years and years and 40 years ago. So this movie is incredibly low stakes. It's just like, are they going to go on the date or not? Yeah. I was just aching with like that fucking like, Oh, what it was like to be a kid in those days before there was social media before you were kind of isolated on your cell phone. Phones play a big part in the movie, but it's like emergency breakthroughs. And there are cordless phones, but it's like the pull-up thing as you talk and a lot of fucking push-button dialing and stuff. So it's of an era that I grew up in that kind of shaped me.

2:19:14And most of the movies I've ever made have been about like the 90s, so to speak. I would love that, though. And this movie is more about the 80s. Takes you back to like 86. So it is. It's really like wears its heart on its fucking sleeve. And the kids in it are amazing. Austin, Nick, Reed, Sienna, like a fantastic cast. When I finished the script, normally when I make a movie, I'm like, script's the best thing about it. And I always felt that way because I'm like, we can get a cool cast, but it's all predicated on the script. This is the first time I read one of my scripts, and I was like, well, I hope the cast is real good because there's not a lot going on in the script.

2:19:47I said, but if the cast is charming, this movie will work. And the cast is crazy, wonderful, charming. So if the movie works at all, it's because of them, because of Ken Jeong, because of Justin Long, because of all the people that are in it. But September 13th, you could say to a theater near you and then digitally, of course, it'll come back. We'll share about it on my socials too, man. I'll make sure that we remember that. Yeah, I remember being that age just praying that my dick would be big. We used to do that all the time. Me and my buddy Scott. I prayed for that. I was always okay with the dick size.

2:20:14And it wasn't big, but I was like, when did you realize you didn't have a big dick? Why were you praying for something? For all you knew, you had the biggest dick in the world. Well, I think at like 12 or 13, you started praying, Some people started praying about it around us. But did you have a size comparison to look at and be like, my dick's not like that? No, but you just knew people wanted to have - How did you just know, Theo? People said, oh, you got a little - People would say, oh - Why'd you believe him? You had no proof. Proof's in the pudding. If you're not seeing it, you're not being it.

2:20:39So all this time you've been worried that you got not a big enough dick, you could have gone home anytime you wanted. All you had to do was click your heels together. For all you know, you got the biggest dick in the world. You know what? Your show. Whip it out. Let's find out. I'll take out mine and you're going to feel like a champion. You're going to be like, oh, I'm better than them in this way too. Look, you can hide 11 of my dicks behind one Celsius can. I'll tell you that. That's my dream to be thick as a Celsius can and just as tasty. Oh, now we're talking. Yes. Arctic blast. It'd be very easy to get blown if you taste like Arctic blast.

2:21:11Especially if your wiener had like one of those pop things at the end, like a pop top. If they could just pop it over. And also if when they were done, they were going to be like, I'm going to feel energetic because I'm going to burn extra calories. I'm ready for work. that would change your wife's behavior in the morning i think truly would i could maybe i could get like 8 a.m 9 a.m going on god i'm gonna pray about that um you said something before you don't right now you're not in a relationship no when was the last serious relationship probably like four or five years you know so i want to be in that's why you're successful son oh i feel like you're like fuck love you're like i'm married to my job yeah that's what happens so now the job's in a great fucking place now you're like hmm who will i who will i share all this with yeah now i I got to find a wife.

2:21:51I got to get some, I got to get a little bit of help first. I got to decompress. Got to find a wife. You don't need to find a wife. You just need to find somebody. Yeah. You don't got to marry him and shit like that. I mean, you got a lot to protect right now, so don't fucking... Find a partner in crime. Yeah, just find somebody that when you're done doing it, when you're done being Theo, you know, you just go be Theo. Yeah, and just have some kids that are your own to play with and stuff. Oh, God. Be careful, though. When you have kids and you want to hang out with them and you do shit with them, public gets shitty.

2:22:18I put up that thing about beardless, dickless me on my Instagram. And there was somebody that was like, ew, stop forcing your kid down my throat. And it's like, you don't have to fucking listen. It's a free podcast. It's not mandatory. I'm not saying there's like taxes where it's like, you got to do this. It's like, if you don't want to fuck with it, don't fuck with it. It's always amazing to me when people get hostile and shit like that. There's one guy who was like, this is the weirdest reaction. He goes, I saw a video where you're crying on YouTube and shit and you went crazy. And then you said you were to stop posting and now it's give me a dollar here give me a dollar here and you're doing this podcast so i went through everything he said i was like is any of this true and i did do a youtube video but i wasn't crying in it and i did say i was gonna like not fuck with my socials as much which i didn't for the better part of a year after i got out of the fucking nut house and shit i stayed away from that shit so i could try to figure out how i felt about myself never mind how this random fucker feels about me and shit and then he was saying that like i asked for a dollar here and there it's not true i was advertising a free fucking podcast and I was about to respond and then I was like, you know, you've been around so fucking long.

2:23:19You know the game, why are you even fucking wasting a second, man, so I just deleted that shit, moved on with my day. It's like, they taught me in the nut house, man, like there's two places that human beings love to exist and the two least healthy places for a human being to be. The past and the future. The condition of the human being is such that we spend so much of our time thinking about what we've done and what went wrong and what could have and should have happened and our regret. And we relitigate the past like we're expert fucking lawyers and barristers and shit like that. And so we're not here in the moment.

2:23:58We're in the past going like, oh, remember I said that shit. And why didn't that person say hi that time? And fucking, man, how come that dude's doing it? I'm not. Why are they ahead of me and shit like that? That's all fucking stuff you can't do anything about. Past happened. You can't rewrite that. You can't change it. Maybe if you're Tony Stark, you can go back and change it, then endgame happens. But you cannot fucking change the past. So stay out of the fucking past because the past is depression. Future is anxiety. Because nobody controls that shit. Nobody knows what's going to happen. And you can't sit there.

2:24:27A lot of people you meet and you're like, you should write a story that aren't creative like you. Bullshit. Everybody in this audience is way more creative than me. As fine a writer than me, if not better, when it comes to imagining a dire future for themselves. we are all the most creative and inventive fucking individuals when we're thinking about all the shit that could go wrong we build scenarios crazy scenarios about this happens and this and this and this and we live in them they're so fucking real the body remembers there's a book called the body remembers which is about trauma and how the body stores trauma scientifically proven body remembers trauma so then later on in life when you think about the trauma guess what the body remembers it and it revisits it through the amygdala and shit like that.

2:25:07So when you've got PTSD, that's why people get shakes or fucking have to be away from people and stuff. That's real. The physically, the body remembers fucking trauma and stuff like that. So the best way past all that shit. I don't know. I'm still trying to figure that out, but stay out of the past. God damn it. And stay out of the future. Cause you can't do anything about it. All that fucking like, think about this, all that, like, Oh my God, this is going to happen. And this happens and everything fucking goes wrong. And I lose again and shit. Oh yeah, it's a nightmare. It's not true though.

2:25:37It's all fiction that you're just making up. You're going to make some future shit up because that's what it is. You don't know what's going to happen. Flip the script and just fucking make up all happy. Fucking goofy ass, unbelievable shit. Yeah, at least make up some good shit for yourself. Dude, it has as much likelihood as fucking happening. That's the truth. It ain't even fucking fantasy. It's like you're already, not you, but the collective you, you're already living in fantasy if you're like, no, only bad shit happens. You're already fucking weaving a fantastic fucking tale that is untrue and it's based on no facts whatsoever.

2:26:05So if you can do that, just fucking change it to like, you know what? Marvel calls me all of a sudden, I'm directing the next fucking Avengers movie. Yeah. It has just as much a chance of happening as the negative bullshit. So if we can't live in the past or shouldn't live in the past and it's unhealthy and we shouldn't live in the future, if past is depression, the future of anxiety, there's only one place to be. We have no choice. Be here in the present. But so often we're not in the fucking present, man. Nobody wants to be in this moment. They want to be there. Everyone's headed to a place and then everyone's obsessing about where we've been.

2:26:35Kids, this is what they taught me in the nut house. I'm going to save you a lot of fucking money and time and shit like that. Be here and now. Be mindful. Breathe. The easiest way to do that, if your head's going crazy and you're in the fucking future and shit and you're worrying about some bad bullshit, or if you're in the past worrying about some old fucking shit that happened, what you need to do is just this. It's crazy shit, free as fuck. Breathe. You go.

2:27:00Just breathe in and out five times. Deep breaths. And you know what it does? It grounds you. Do you know why? Because you cannot breathe in the past And you cannot breathe in the future you can only breathe in the here and now so by breathing You bring yourself back to the moment you pull yourself out of that fake future that you're fretting about You pull yourself out of that horrendous past that you're still traumatized by and you're here now And you could sit there and go like well wait is anything wrong? No, my body's reactance is some shit I was thinking about because the body stores trauma and I just did this to myself I created this condition you could pull yourself out of that I'm not saying this is a cure for everything.

2:27:35Some people go through real shit. But when you're in your head, that ain't real shit. And you may have gone through real shit in your life, but when you're in your head fretting about it, you are making up a fucking fiction. You don't know the fucking future. Yeah, because sometimes you don't even recognize it. And you work yourself up. The body fucking, dude, you can, I had a fucking heart attack. And yes, I had a heart attack because I had a fucking pack, you know, LAD full of cholesterol and shit like that. People could put themselves in. They say stress is the number one killer. Get you to that heart attack.

2:28:03And stress is created by sitting around going like, oh, fucking what if it don't work out, man? I didn't love it work out because it never worked out in the past. Remember that fucking time? You tried that thing and it didn't work? You're a fucking asshole. You got to put that shit away. Flip the script and be like, I'm in the here and now. If you can't do that and you got to be in the future, just make up a better future. It has just as much a likelihood as coming true as the fake bullshit that you're fretting about and it's ruining your life. At least be an author for the best for yourself. You can make it up.

2:28:29Make up good shit. Kevin Smith, 430 movie comes out September 13th. 14th and um my podcast with my kid and the smodcast network beardless no it's not iheart iheart network beardless dickless me i i took all my shit behind a paywall years ago all my podcasts and shit so this is the first one i'm going out in the world and seeing like what would it be like if i had infrastructure and the folks at iheart were like do it here so i was like all right so beardless dickless me um it's funny i just sit around and try to make her fucking laugh i know some people like ew fuck you and your happy kid no i think it's that's sweet It is.

2:29:00It is constant. Thank you, man. Thanks for all the entertainment. Thanks for all the being your, trying your best to be yourself through your medium. And yeah, so many people have enjoyed so much your work over the years. You're like, I'm not one of them, but I appreciate the fact that it exists. We've all enjoyed your work over the years. Dude, you're going to be in that Next Jane, Saw and Bob movie. Like serious. Oh, like selling the weed. I didn't say that. Don't start writing the part and shit like that. I'll take care of that. No, but you got to play Jay's brother. I'm telling you, Jay's vibe is so similar.

2:29:29I guarantee you in the comments kids in his comments should be like oh my god fucking you and Jay like sometimes you ever watch a movie or TV show and they do like a familial pairing like a mother and daughter you're like that shit is fucking 100 % on I put you next to Jay in a movie and you both talk 100 % wow you're Jay's long lost brother who just was raised in the south and shit or your twang is from south Jersey yeah I did that joke in a movie I'll do it again a lot of times people in Louisiana get people accuse them from being from New Jersey thank you so much Kevin Thank you for having me.

2:30:00Thank you for letting me talk as much as I did. And apologies to anybody who tuned in to listen to Theo talk, because I feel like I did most of the talking. Dude, you know what's so funny? It's a blessing. I was kind of tired today and I'm grateful that you spoke a lot. Are you serious? Yeah. Fuck it. Honestly, that's 100 % meaningful to me. Number one, that's fucking crazy real. And number two, I know what that means as a person who's done this a bunch of shit. It's just like, he's coming in. All right. Like, I like him and he made clerks. All right. But I ain't feeling up to it today. So the fact that I was on Motormouth and you were like, this works for me 100 anytime you don't feel like working you want me i'll just sit here and talk the whole time and you can fucking sit there and be present in the moment and breathe um and sorry the ac wasn't working the coldest thing it wasn't it wasn't the eight the coldest thing in here is that celsius cooler are you kidding me we had it open earlier this is the coldest and the coolest thing fucking in here actually you're the coolest thing in here fucking celsius cooler second coolest well you're cool too man thanks i did that i said it just so you would say that back on Kevin Smith.

2:30:55Pull that shit putting on my Instagram. Theo Vaughn said I was cool. Thanks, brother. Thanks, man. Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones But it's gonna take Thank you.