My Boring-Ass Life (Revised Edition): The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith (75 page)

“He’s putting it in her butt,” Brother Don tells me. “Why?” I ask. “Because he’s the devil. That’s what the devil does, I guess.”

Now, coming from a Catholic household and six years of Catholic school at this point, you’d imagine that’d be some kind of formative moment for both of us: like, from that moment forward, me and my brother would forever associate (or ASSociate) anal sex with Armageddon, and I’d grow up to be one of these “gays are the devil’s pawns” kinda guys. Instead, my brother grew up to be gay (married to a man, and celebrating their thirteenth anniversary today, as a matter of fact), and I became something of an ass-man myself (though with the ladies). The only Armageddon it introduced was my brother and I growing up to be like “Armageddon me some ass!”

What I did take from
Final Conflict
, however, was that anal is something to be approached delicately. For that reason, I’m far less agro than Damien when it comes to the booty; I’m smoove. I’d have sex for the first time approximately two years after seeing that flick (I lost it at age thirteen, with a chick named Norma), but it’d be two more years after that before I got into some of my first digital ass-play with my then-girlfriend, in a parked VW Beetle. Oddly, Damien and his hate-fucking antics never once sprang to mind. There was no spooky music and howls of terror; it was actually all kinds of cool, because the two of us (the then-girlfriend and I) worked ourselves up into a teenage frenzy over the trespassing into heretofore forbidden territory... until a cop knocked on the window with his flashlight and told us to move along. But from that moment forward, the genie was out of the bottle, and the ass was in play: any time I went down on a girl, sooner or later, the pinky would aid and abet my cunnilingus.

I remember having a conversation with Mewes about eating girls out, and being shocked to learn that he only did it with the chicks he really liked or was going to spend time with beyond a one-night stand. Going down on chicks was never an option for me; it was the standard. When you grow up fat, you’re never any chick’s first choice for fooling around, and any nookie you get is predicated more on your personality than your looks. Since I didn’t have the aesthetic advantage working for me, I decided that having the oral edge might improve my chances of getting action beyond the mercy-dry hump or third base fumblings. If a girl was gonna do me the courtesy of giving me a shot at the title, so to speak, I was gonna make an impression. So at age thirteen, I bought a gynecological textbook at a physician’s bookshop and read that shit cover-to-cover, absorbing
all the knowledge I could about the mysteries of the dickless. By age fourteen, I was — as Sam Kinison used to say — a lick-master from the Orient. You’d be surprised how many women will look past a flabby, swingin’ gutt if they know they’re gonna get eaten out with nearly surgical precision. And when you add digital-to-anal manipulation to the mix, any thought of you as a fat-ass seems to fly out the window (at least until she cums).

I wouldn’t have honest-to-goodness anal sex for another few years after that initial parked car experimentation. Then, like now, I was never the instigator; perhaps because of the impolite example Damien provided all those years prior, I figured that first move wasn’t mine to make. If a girl wanted to plumb those depths, she was gonna have to tell me to do so. It’s common courtesy, I’ve always figured: if I was a chick, I’d want to make that choice for myself — not have some oversexed horndog who’s already being given the gift of a lifetime get all greedy and go for broke of his own volition.

Contrary to what they tell us in porn, I’m of a firm belief that most chicks aren’t very into anal, but only opt for it in the heat of the moment. Sure, there are always exceptions that prove the rule; but if a sexual itinerary were to be established upfront, before things got hot-and-heavy, I think most women would be hard-pressed to utter “And then, you can drill my brown.” It’s only during the throes of passion, when common sense gives way to pure carnality, that anal suddenly becomes a seemingly good idea. For that reason, I’ve never rushed in with my dick where angels fear to tread; I’ll start with the fingers, and if reason doesn’t settle in at that point, I’ll eventually do as I’m told — though only in a spooning fashion. I mean, look at me: I’m not the guy you want on top of you during traditional sex, let alone when something as delicate as the sphincter’s at the epicenter of it all. If a guy my size loses his balance during man-on-top anal sex, the poor woman’s looking at a future of colostomy bags. I don’t Damien-it; I’m the tenth-of-an-inch at a time type, leaving plenty of room for reversal of opinion. It also helps that I’m hung like a grape.

I guess what I’m getting at is this: I feel it’s totally okay to pick your nose. And anal is something you’ve gotta let your partner call the shots on and during.

However, picking your nose DURING anal? Probably not a good idea.

A Dick in a Mustache is Still Just a Dick

Tuesday 18 July 2006 @ 4:16 p.m.

So last night, at a press screening of
Clerks II
in New York City,
Good Morning
America
movie critic Joel Siegel decided he’d had enough of my shenanigans, and walked out of the flick at the forty minute mark. You’d imagine this would bother me, and yet, I’m as delighted by this news as I was with the eight-minute standing ovation
Clerks II
received in Cannes.

I mean, it’s Joel Siegel, for Christ’s sake. As Paul Thomas Anderson once said of the man, getting a bad review from Siegel is like a badge of honor. This is the guy who stole his mustachioed critic shtick from Gene Shalit years ago, and still refuses to give it back. This is a guy who seemingly prides himself on being “punny” — that is, he likes to add his own nyuk-nyuk wordplay into the reviews he writes/gives.

For
Pirates 2
, he made us all titter with “Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of Fun”.

For Pixar’s lastest, he made us squeal with delight when he wrote “Wheelie Good Time for
Cars
”.

Can you believe he somehow not only made us laugh, but also think, when he challenged our perception with “
X-Men
Fails to X-cite”.

I mean, Fozzie fucking Bear laughs at this guy (AT, mind you, not WITH).

So while I feel like my life will be a little bleaker now that I’ll never know what pun Joel would’ve dug deeply into his comedic well to produce for
Clerks II
(“
Clerks II
? More like ‘Jerks, Too’!”., I’ve gotta admit that I’m relieved somebody was finally offended by the flick — enough to head for the exit less than an hour in. I was beginning to think I was losing my touch.

I can’t fault Mr. Siegel for feeling “revolted” (his producer’s description of Joel’s reaction) by our flick; in truth, there is a donkey show in it, and I recognize that brand of whimsy might not be for everybody. Film appreciation is very subjective, and maybe Joel just isn’t into ass-to-mouth conversations.

However, I CAN fault him for the manner in which he left the screening.

Apparently, rather than quietly exit, both Joel and his Cum-Catcher (my slang for the fancy kind of mustache he sports) made a big stink about walking out, calling as much attention to himself as possible, and being generally pretty disruptive.

Check this shit out: roughly forty minutes into the flick, when Randal orders up the third act donkey show, Siegel bellowed to his fellow critics “Time to go!’’ and “This is the first movie I’ve walked out of in thirty fucking years!’’

Now, I don’t need Joel Siegel to suck my dick the way he apparently sucks M. Night’s, gushing over his flick before he’s even seen it; but shit, man — how about a little common fucking courtesy? Never mind the fact that when you’re paid to watch movies for a living and the only tasks required of you are to a) sit through said movies and b) write your thoughts about them before your deadline, walking out before a movie’s over is pretty unprofessional. Never mind the fact that the scene he was offended by (the ordering of the donkey show), with its (misleading) crude references is only the set-up to a third act pay-off that is a true bait-and-switch from where Joel’s imagination went (and if you’ve already seen the flick, you KNOW what I’m talking about). Never mind that this dude is so straight-laced in his tastes and hyperbolic in his praise that when The Onion took a poke at Joel, I was almost unsure whether it was a joke or not...

You never... NEVER disrupt a movie, simply because you don’t like it.

Cardinal rule of movie-going: shut your fucking mouth while the movie’s playing. They even ask you to do so in the pre-show run-up to every flick (“Cell phones and pagers off, no talking during the show”.. This guy went beyond talking, even; he was making a spectacle of himself as he left. I’ve now spoken to three folks in attendance last night, and all have said that Siegel WANTED everyone to know how disgusted he was, and that he was leaving. If you want to share your displeasure with everyone, that’s fine, dude; just do it AFTER the movie, not during. Some folks were enjoying themselves. I don’t come down to your job and slap the taste out of your mouth for coming up with a line like “
Shark Tale
Is a Halibut Good Time”. so don’t fuck with my stuff WHILE IT’S STILL SCREENING.

Shit, Joel, I know you like being on camera and all, but was it so difficult to not be the center of attention for forty minutes that you just had to sparkle, Neely, sparkle-it up for your peers instead of showing them a little goddamn courtesy by leaving the theater the way most people do, either during or after the picture: quietly? What are you, a twelve year-old boy, cutting loose with your pals at a Friday night screening of
Scary Movie 4
while your parents are in a theater down the hall watching
The Devil Wears Prada
? Leave the diva-like behavior and drama-queen antics to the movie stars, not the movie reviewer, ya’ rude-ass prick.

It makes me laugh to think that, had Joel stayed ‘til the end (like any good critic would for any movie they’re paid to watch), he would’ve seen that we weren’t going where he seemed to think we were going. But apparently, Joel took a cue from his own
Poseidon
review, in which he wrote: “Audiences today wouldn’t stand for an hour of exposition before the flood hit. In fact, they wouldn’t stand; they’d walk out.” Well, Magnum (y’know — because of the mustache), I guess you’re a member of that same audience that can’t stand exposition.

Look, I don’t hate the guy. Shit, I’m glad he survived his fairly recent bout with cancer. But his behavior in that screening was unconscionable and professionally unethical, not to mention childishly disruptive. And while I might get laughed at for saying this... well, I just expected more from Joel Siegel.

*sigh*

UPDATE
!

The
New York Post
ran a rather large item about this story on page six today, and this morning on the
Opie and Anthony Show
, the guys and I were talking about the whole
Affair du
Siegel. Then, the guys got Mr. Mustache on the phone. It was pretty fucking entertaining radio and a fascinating insight into the hubris that comes with being the “punny” movie critic on
Good Morning America
. (Listen here:
http://www.viewaskew.com/kevin/joelsiegel.mp3
)

The Aftermath

Sunday 23 July 2006 @ 9:14 p.m.

Friday, on the subject of
Clerks II
the
Hollywood Report
wrote “Bowing in 2,150 theaters, the R-rated film is likely to open in the $10 million range.”

The other main industry trade,
Variety
, wrote that we did “$11 million for
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
on its first weekend in 2001.
Clerks II
bow will likely be close to that.”

Today, at the close of our début weekend, the word is as follows...

Reuters writes “Kevin Smith’s
Clerks II
was No. 6 with $9.6 million, broadly in line with expectations.”

USA Today
writes “Among the other newcomers,
Clerks II
did a respectable $9.6 million for sixth...”

Box Office Guru says “Fans showed support for Kevin Smith whose comedy sequel
Clerks II
debuted in sixth place with an estimated $9.6M from 2,150 theaters. Averaging a good $4,477 per site.”

Len Klady at Movie City News writes “Additionally,
Clerks II
ranked sixth with a passable $9.8 million”

And
Variety
writes that we “débuted with a lukewarm $9.6 million”

“In line with expectations.” “Respectable.” “Good.” “Passable.” “Lukewarm.” Not exactly enthusiastic buzzwords — more like the way any woman who’s ever been goodly enough to sleep with me has reviewed my cocksmanship.

I’m not gonna try to spin it for you: we’d have liked to have opened better, naturally.

And yet, I’m happy.

Let’s get the business stuff out of the way first...

Once again, in what’s been termed by some box office analysts as the
Star Trek
-Effect, we saw good Friday numbers dip on Saturday. Essentially, the hardest of hardcore fans show up in full-force on opening day, inflating the returns slightly, leaving Saturday to drop rather than enjoy the standard jump most flicks enjoy on the same day. So while it would’ve been nice to have done our best opening weekend ever with
Clerks II
(that 11 million
Strike Back
bar didn’t seem all that high to reach on Friday night), alas, it’s number six for us.

I can’t find anything to complain about; I mean, we nearly doubled our budget in the opening weekend. And while there were marketing costs (prints and advertising) beyond the negative cost ($5 mil production budget), they were pretty modest (indeed, we spent far less opening
Clerks II
than we did to open
Strike Back
). The flick should manage to get to $20–$25 mil theatrically, and eke out a minor theatrical profit, leaving all the DVD loot as total windfall.