E531 Kevin Smith

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Today's guest is a filmmaker, writer, speaker, comic book aficionado. You know him from his films: Clerks,

Speaker 1 Mulrats, Jay and Silent Bob, Dogma, Tusk, and the list goes on. He has a new film out now called The 430 Movie, loosely based on his childhood in New Jersey.
I'm thankful to spend time today with Mr.

Speaker 2 Kevin Smith.

Speaker 2 Yeah, look at me. I'm in fucking monochrome.

Speaker 1 Is that what that print is?

Speaker 2 Black and white.

Speaker 1 Oh, monochrome is black and white. Okay, sweet.
Yeah, I didn't know that. I mean, I've heard of it before.

Speaker 2 Fuck yeah, you have.

Speaker 1 But yeah.

Speaker 2 You're a smart guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm not a dog. Yeah, I'm a.

Speaker 1 Yeah, don't fucking, don't sweat.

Speaker 2 You knew monochrome. It's just one of those things you didn't need.
And then it happened, and then you're like, why didn't I? But you did. Yeah.
I've seen you speak. You're no dummy.

Speaker 1 It was always in there somewhere. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Probably used it.
You probably busted it once or twice in your life.

Speaker 1 Oh, I've definitely, I mean, I've been involved in some like, it's not race. It's like the most racial of screens if it's monochrome, right? It's black and white, kind of.
It's the

Speaker 1 apartheid of print.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I scream it when I come. I'm like, monochrome?

Speaker 2 Because clerks was in black and white. Yeah.
So everything ties back to clerks.

Speaker 2 Only clerks, the only way I could come now is thinking of clerks.

Speaker 1 Well, I love the mall rat shoes, man. Those are so, that's, I mean, that's really cool.

Speaker 2 Did we start? Yeah, we'll start. Who made those? Are we started?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we can. Is that okay?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's totally cool.

Speaker 2 Modern podcasting, I've not gotten the hang of. Like, we started back in like 2007.
We were doing Smodcast.

Speaker 1 Smodcast, yeah.

Speaker 2 And there was always like, welcome to Smodcast. I'm Kevin Smith.
I'm Scott Mosher.

Speaker 2 So there was an official beginning, but lately, any podcast I've been on, You're just bullshitting and all of a sudden you're five minutes into a conversation.

Speaker 2 I'm like, oh, I bet you we started and shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, sometimes it's like, I think sometimes some places things are a little more formal. I don't know.
Sometimes I feel like if you start, if I say start, then it doesn't go as, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I mean, you're a director. What is that like? If you say, well, it depends who you ask.

Speaker 2 I like to think of a director, but you go on the internet. They'll tell you a lot fucking different.
He was a director, maybe once in his fucking first movie.

Speaker 2 Every day online, somebody tells me I'm terrible at my job. For the the last like 30 years that I've been doing the job, you know what that's what were you, maybe you don't.

Speaker 2 You're like, I've never gotten a bad fucking review. Do you dig into your comments?

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, we don't, I don't dig into them too much, man. I was actually talking

Speaker 1 Joe Rogan. I spoke with him recently and he was saying, don't read the good shit.
Don't read the bad shit. Bro,

Speaker 2 are we going to start dropping names this early in the next?

Speaker 2 I mean, you just whip that out.

Speaker 2 Like a cock. Yeah.
Like, fucking, who are you? Louis C.K. I wasn't ready for that.

Speaker 2 All of a sudden, we're talking Joe Rogan and shit. What? Why are we here? Like, I thought you were a Nashville person.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I live in Nashville, yeah.

Speaker 1 But we, we have, we, we kept our studio here, and so sometimes we tape here.

Speaker 2 So you live in, do you live in Nashville?

Speaker 1 I live in Tennessee, yeah, full-time.

Speaker 2 Where in Tennessee?

Speaker 1 I live just, like, right outside of the city. I live kind of by like Lipscomb High School.

Speaker 2 So you live near Nashville. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I fuck with Tennessee a lot. They like us there quite a bit.
Like, I was just in Kingsport because we did the Smoky Mountain Fan Fest. And then like a month before that, I was in Knoxville.

Speaker 2 Like anytime I go out and do shows, that's generally a place that I've always wound up. I was in, can I tell you a fucking story real quick? So I was in, recently I was in Kentucky.

Speaker 2 I went and did a show in Lexington.

Speaker 1 Lexington is awesome.

Speaker 2 Beautiful, right? So I'm, I, you know, when I'm,

Speaker 2 I'm vegan. I hate saying that because everyone's like, fuck you.
Now I'm eating twice as much meat. And I'm like, all right, that's on you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, people don't eat tight.

Speaker 2 But I went vegan because I was being stomach gay or whatever

Speaker 2 they they I want I I I had a heart attack six and a half years ago so I wound up going vegan and it helped used to be happy now I'm fucking vegan so it's just part of you know it's just what I do but I don't try to push it on people and shit like that like when I started smoking weed back in the day I was definitely like proselytizing for that like oh my god you should try this Veganism I don't proselytize for because people get really triggered by the word now if somebody's like hey man how'd you lose that fucking weight or you know some people have been like, you fucking Ozimpic bitch.

Speaker 2 I'm like, no, fuck.

Speaker 2 I went vegan after my heart attack. That's how the weight went away.
Not because, like, you know, I necessarily tried, although I do now fucking walk over 10,000 steps a day.

Speaker 2 But, you know, I was like, I don't want to die. So let me try this.
And I thought I'd do it for a few months and then go back. And then I never went back.

Speaker 1 Being vegan, you mean? Yeah. Yeah.
Can you still have house plants if you're a vegan? Or is that like a weird absolutely?

Speaker 2 Number one,

Speaker 2 sure i am on some left level an ethical vegan who

Speaker 2 should think about that like i i do love animals so i'm sure that's some part of why it's easy for me to be vegan but i was not one of those like i'm doing it because it's the right thing to do i did it to save my fucking life and it worked out and shit so even if i like you know was like fuck a house plant but i'd i'd still go vegan.

Speaker 2 Where are you going with that house plant thing, though?

Speaker 1 Oh, I just didn't know if you were like a plant, if you only eat, because vegan means you can only eat.

Speaker 2 it's the idea that well i'm plant-based okay so is the idea that if i i can't have a plant-based because i'm like well this is my friend but i'm gonna eat him well it would just seem like

Speaker 2 they would catch on be like having a fish tank and eating being a person that eats and being a pescatarian pescatarian

Speaker 2 yeah i guess i was like at some point they're gonna catch on that you know i'm saying they're gonna be like this guy's playing both sides of the and the plants are gonna start leaning forward out and shit get defensive that's where the venus flytrap came from a plant that was like i must defend myself against a vegan that was one of the first craziest movies that I ever heard of when I was a kid.

Speaker 1 Little Shop of Horrors? Yeah, Little Shop of Horrors.

Speaker 2 It was like a weird movie. It was a musical about like a Venus flytrap.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Audrey 2. And it had a plant that came from the camera.

Speaker 2 Plant came from outer space, though. Oh, that's true.
You didn't lose a lot of sleep over it, did you?

Speaker 1 No, I didn't. I wasn't, I don't think it scared me.
It was just interesting. It was like a little bit before my time, like where I like, we didn't, I don't know if I've ever seen it.
I saw it

Speaker 2 off Broadway because I grew up like on the East Coast.

Speaker 1 Oh, you saw the musical?

Speaker 2 Yeah, like on stage and shit before it became this musical, which is awesome as well.

Speaker 1 Oh, before it became a movie. Yeah, yeah.
Wow. So it was a big musical first.

Speaker 2 It was. Damn.
Off-Broadway hit.

Speaker 2 It was a big-ass puppet, like on stage. Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's a picture of it right there.

Speaker 2 I guess.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, kind of. There's on stage the ones to the...
to the right in that one picture that looks like the stage show. Oh, I forgot.

Speaker 2 Again, modern podcast, you guys have a screen and you spend an inordinate amount of time looking at images and videos and shit. That was something that never occurred to us in 2006.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you just had to use your imagination.

Speaker 2 And we just talked to each other. And there was also no real video component.
Like that was the attraction of doing the podcast. It's like, I can just fucking do it, dress like however I am.

Speaker 2 It's like voicing animation or something. Yeah.
But y'all have gotten it down to fucking science. Like I, you know, when I went to Tom Sincorrow's place, fucking, well, Joe, of course,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 Bert,

Speaker 2 all y'all have free drinks. Yeah.
Like, I was just out there, and they're like, you want water? And that's kind of standard. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'll have oil.

Speaker 2 They're like, or would you like Celsius? I was like, what do you mean? And there's a fucking Celsius cooler out there

Speaker 2 that is stock. It's more stock than a 7-Eleven.
Whose fucking dick are you sucking to get that much Celsius? Oh, dude. And what am I doing wrong, Theo?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 I'm not vegan.

Speaker 2 It can be.

Speaker 2 You just don't swallow the meat. You know what I'm saying? You put it in your mouth, you just don't swallow it.

Speaker 2 Why on earth can't I get this fucking podcast thing down to a science? I'm doing it.

Speaker 1 But you were one of the, I mean, you, you were one of the early guys in it.

Speaker 2 Do you know what? Here's where I thought, and I've said this on other podcasts, so we'll do other things and shit. Vaughan would, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 Like, I thought I was so smart because I was like, oh, we'll do all these podcasts and we give them out for free.

Speaker 2 And then when I'm in their town doing a live show, that's when they'll buy a ticket because they've gotten all this free. And that was how I was like, and that's how we'll make money on podcasting.

Speaker 1 So that was your strategy from the beginning, you're saying?

Speaker 2 That was my generation. I mean, it wasn't even my strategy.
It was just like, we really, it just started because I was like, this is fucking fun.

Speaker 2 And me and Boji are sitting around like goofing off and having a microphone on fun conversations appealed to me. We always take snapshots of people and whatnot.

Speaker 2 They're pictures to memorialize a moment, capture a moment. But nobody ever really records a conversation and shit, a normal conversation.
If you're on TV, sure.

Speaker 2 So that's why I loved podcasting, the idea of doing that shit. And then one day

Speaker 2 we had a lot of people listening to the the podcast and they were like, my business manager was like, you got a bill for a thing called a server? And it was like really high.

Speaker 2 And I was like, what the fuck is this? And it turns out podcasting is free for everybody but the fucking podcaster, particularly if people watch the podcast and shit.

Speaker 2 So we were hosting on our own server. So we had to figure out like, all right, what the fuck? How do we pay for this? And I was like, well, we could do it live.

Speaker 2 We could start doing live shows, but even before that, like, I remember like we were, it was, it was so primitive and we were reverse engineering, going like, what did they do in the early days of TV?

Speaker 2 Like on 21, that game show, they had Geritol like as a sponsor. Maybe we should get an advertiser.

Speaker 2 Like we've been watching TV our whole lives, but when we were doing the podcast, like it was, it was less going like, perhaps someone will pay us to say things about their product like they did in the 50s.

Speaker 1 Just a hard way of learning. It really was.

Speaker 2 Rudiment. And it got harder because the sponsor we reached out to, the first sponsor we had was Fleshlight.

Speaker 2 Like, because they had written me a letter after Zach and Miriam Megaporno, because we had a whole fleshlight scene, and they were like, hey, man, if you ever want to do a fleshlight, like, fucking let us know.

Speaker 2 And I've still, one day I will do the Kevin Smith's mouth. Like, fuck him in the mouth.
My own fleshlight. Yeah.
That, you know, a fan.

Speaker 1 Well, then people leaving angry comments can actually take it. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 A fan and an enemy, somebody who hates your shit, fan and a hater could both enjoy that. Like, fuck Kevin Smith.
Or, fuck Kevin Smith. So they had written this really lovely letter and filed it away.

Speaker 2 Like, oh, that's cute. And

Speaker 2 Flashlight. And then when we needed to pay the server bill and shit, I said to Scott Mojo, I was like, man, what if we reach out to Flashlight? Like, they, maybe they'll sponsor our, our few shows.

Speaker 2 And so they were way into it. Like, this was, this was so early in the game.
We're talking like 2007, maybe on the cusp of 2008.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 And so, and so much so that Rogan called me like in 2010 going, like, should I fucking use flashlight? Yeah. And I was like, for your dick? And he goes, no, for the show.

Speaker 2 And I was like, oh, number one, use it for your dick. It's amazing.
I said, number two, definitely use it for the show. And so they started advertising on Joe's show.

Speaker 2 And then they started selling way more flashlights because they'd been with us for like two years and anybody who listened to us is like, we're fucking it already. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, it's its own market's got a glass ceiling, so to speak.

Speaker 2 But once he went to Joe, they shattered the glass ceiling. Joe Rogan shattered the glass ceiling for fleshlight.
There's your fucking headline. That's what you don't get credit for.
So

Speaker 2 we had to figure that shit out. And then like, I remember trying to take it out on a live show.
Like, I used to do Q ⁇ As, just be by myself, evening with Kevin Smith and shit like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Kind of close to comedy, but more, I guess nowadays they call it crowd work, where it's like, look, I need you to say something before I could be funny.

Speaker 2 And so I'd let the audience ask questions and then I'd go off and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I've seen you guys do live podcasts.

Speaker 2 And over the years, I mean, obviously, I've seen you do a lot of stuff, but just for the listeners who don't know know a server it's like where you kind of host your podcast so that it can go out into the world so we were just on the server that our files were on and the email what is that we use for the office it was our the viewsq.com server so we hosted a website right viewsq.com so because of that we already had a server up and running so that's where we started hosting them we didn't like now you'd feed them into apple podcasts that shit necessarily didn't exist oh that's true that might not even have been there i'm telling you so people had to get it like it was almost like a AM, like a CB radio.

Speaker 1 Like there were probably people listening on CB radio.

Speaker 2 We were fucking distributing podcasts via carrier pigeon at that point. Like we would roll up little things to their legs and send them off and people in other cities would be like, I get it.

Speaker 2 I get it.

Speaker 2 It was weird. Going into a comedy club and going like, we want to do a podcast here.
Like, cause, you know, I toured so much by myself.

Speaker 2 That when I asked my agent at one point, I was like, hey, man, me and Moj want to go out and do this podcast in front of people. So can you hook it up? Like in any of the gigs I normally do.

Speaker 2 But all those places like didn't want to pay me what they normally paid me. They're like, what are you doing? And I'm like, well, I'm sitting next to my friend and we're talking to each other.

Speaker 2 And they're like, and you're not going to take questions. I was like, no,

Speaker 2 maybe, I guess, but that's not really part of the show. They're like,

Speaker 2 I don't know. That sounds risky.
And so we had to fucking do the show for like.

Speaker 2 70, 30 splits, like at very small clubs, because they were like, what do you mean a podcast? Like that kind of shit.

Speaker 2 So, after the first tour, like, and then we put the shows out, people are like, Oh, shit, it's fun.

Speaker 2 And doing it with a live audience was this weird experience because we'd always done it in a room like this with nobody but each other entertaining each other.

Speaker 2 And then suddenly do it in front of people, you know, it's a world of difference.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, podcasts.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the podcast, that was the N-word of like, um,

Speaker 1 like whatever, you know,

Speaker 1 video, audio communication or whatever for a while. Like, you wouldn't even say it, or if somebody said it, you were like, this guy's an outlier, or this guy's a, you know, a pervert or whatever.

Speaker 2 I think this guy's a pedo. Yeah, yeah, you're like, oh, pedo cast?

Speaker 2 You fucking said that.

Speaker 2 I remember when we did talk. Yeah, we're here to catch.

Speaker 1 Have you seen all these videos? Every video now online is just like, this guy's here to meet a 14-year-old. You see those videos all the time?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 Is that right? Yeah, sorry. I mean, there's a TV show all about that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but now it's like

Speaker 1 everybody's a video.

Speaker 2 People are doing it their own.

Speaker 1 Vigilante. It's so rogue.
There's an in- Who's the guy that does it? What's his name? Chris Hansen.

Speaker 2 Which, to be fair, you know, he's good at it, but

Speaker 2 he's still

Speaker 2 the Stan Lee of pedo-busting, Chris Hanson. That's what it says.
It's just Chiron in every TV appearance.

Speaker 1 Now it's now,

Speaker 1 it's people. I mean, there's thousands of them that go up all the time.
It's just like constantly. Tyrone came to meet a 13-year-old girl.
It's always at like a Walmart or something.

Speaker 1 But yeah, it's a big business now.

Speaker 1 I shouldn't say that's not a big bit, but catching these people, baiting them online yourself, people just to create a, you know, and then get views and stuff like that. It's a thing.

Speaker 1 It's a dark world. But I interrupted you, but yeah, that's so wild.

Speaker 2 I didn't even talk.

Speaker 2 Our main character was a podcaster.

Speaker 2 And there were a bunch of

Speaker 2 Haley and Justin Long was the guy who got turned into a Walrus. But like,

Speaker 2 when we put the movie out there, there were some reviews that were like, he has a job I've never heard of before, and shit like that. Like,

Speaker 2 it was a now, it feels like, well, I mean, like, only murders in the buildings is predicated on podcasting. Yeah.
Like, podcasting has become absolutely massive.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I never figured out how to make money from it. Certainly not enough to have a fucking Celsius fridge.
Yeah. What is that all about? How does that happen?

Speaker 1 Dude, they mailed it one day and the guy.

Speaker 2 I want details, Theo. You can't just fucking gloss over this.
Like, that's the most impressive thing I've seen in in a month lord celsius i guess sent it is that who was

Speaker 2 what is he like you know what that's bad of me i'm assuming it's a guy it could be a lady but i assume you would have called her lady celsius yeah her her majesty yeah i don't know

Speaker 1 i can't understand the empress celsius yes the empress celsius that's all right no fuck all this fooling around how did you get that free shit tell me right now uh they yeah we had a sponsorship with them and then they sent that at some point and it's kind of like some of the guys have struck you know some of the guys can't move turn their necks have had so much of it.

Speaker 1 It's fucking.

Speaker 2 My kid introduced me to it because she's like, it's vegan. You could drink it.
I was like, right on. And then.
Kids are drinking it? Yeah. Well, she's 25.

Speaker 2 I guess I don't know if she counts as a kid anymore. But one day she came over and we were recording a podcast.
We got a podcast that's dropping on iHeart.

Speaker 2 It's called Beardless Dickless Me. I get a free plug.
But we were about to record and I cracked a Celsius. And she was like, how many of those you've had today? And I was like, this is the 10th.

Speaker 2 And she goes, what are you fucking nuts? It's an energy drink. And I was like, well, you said it was vegan.
She's like, those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Speaker 2 She said, you're a fucking heart attack victim. She's like, and then she went online, like, the way you guys are, like, somebody's in another room, fucking look at you.

Speaker 2 She immediately went online. She was like, my God, you can't have more than fucking two a day.
What are you, nuts? Yeah, they're very tasty, man. They're good.
But they never felt that strong to me.

Speaker 2 Like, I never felt like hyped, but maybe you don't feel it. Maybe that's the thing about a drug, right? I've never been in the throes of drug abuse.
Maybe I am, and I don't even fucking know it.

Speaker 1 You could be enslaved to Celsius. I never met anybody that's had 10.
My friend Brad used to work for a Red Bull, and he would have.

Speaker 2 I've never met anybody that had 10.

Speaker 1 I've never met anybody that had 10.

Speaker 2 You're going to run in a wild crowd, and you're like, I watch videos that are fucking the dark debt and shit. And you've never met anyone that had 10 days.
Not in one day.

Speaker 1 Not even in one week. I don't know.
I mean, I don't know. I have a couple of friends that probably have, but I just, we haven't talked about it, I guess.

Speaker 1 But the one thing that I was thinking about was my friend Brad used to work for Red Bull, and he said at their Chris, there's a 1-800 number if people are like, have had too much Red Bull or whatever they call.

Speaker 2 I guess. Oh, I'm doing help, help me what do i do

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Speaker 2 That happened to my wife with weed once. We were on the bus and we were in St.
Louis doing some shows at St. Louis.

Speaker 2 And I had a bus in those days because I wouldn't fly because I got thrown off an airplane for being too fat.

Speaker 2 And so I traveled by bus and everyone was like, you're like Madden. But I don't follow follow sports, so I didn't know what were you too fat?

Speaker 1 Did they pull a scale out or how did they even do it? They just guessed?

Speaker 2 The way I understand it years after the fact

Speaker 2 was because somebody was like, hey, man, I work in the industry. I think this is what happened because they never flat out told me.

Speaker 2 It was a packed fucking flight. I wasn't even supposed to be on that flight.
I was supposed to go to the next flight, but they had room. So I was like, ooh, fuck it.
I'll get on this.

Speaker 2 When I walked down the jetway, excuse me, like the one guy was like, where are you going? And I was like, they gave me a ticket. I'm getting on.
And he's like, no, there's too many already.

Speaker 2 And I was like, well,

Speaker 2 the lady just gave me this. And he's like,

Speaker 2 so I walked onto the plane, sat down.

Speaker 2 I was sat between like two women in like the bulkhead of like if you first walk in and you go to the left. That's we were on the right side of the plane.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I'm sitting there and shit and fucking buckled my seatbelt and whatnot. And the armrests were there.
And I was definitely fucking weight heavier than I am now.

Speaker 1 How much do you think you were? Three,

Speaker 2 I probably weighed my area code, which was 323. What? Yeah, I was as high as 330,

Speaker 2 334 at one point. I think that's the biggest I went.

Speaker 1 We look like a healthy 185 right now.

Speaker 2 It's between, I live between 185 and 200, depending on if it's a bread week or not a bread week and whatnot. If I'm breading up, then like I could kind of tend to bloat up and stuff.

Speaker 2 But that was, again, that was the heart attack.

Speaker 2 That was like after the heart attack, I was so fucking terrified of dying and shit and actually I wasn't at the heart attack I was fucking cool about it like I was always scared of dying and shit and then on the table like the guy had told me dr.

Speaker 2 Laydenheim my guy my core cardiologist who just fucking retired and he told me before he retired I was like well now that you're going what do I fucking do who's my new cardiologist and he was like Kevin you don't need a cardiologist anymore it was like the end of Wizard of Eyes like you could have always taken care of your own heart just put your feet together whatever the fuck but he was going like you're you're past it now he's going now you just go to your regular internist and then if you've got a problem then you go to a specialist and i was like well i don't even have that and so he introduced me to a new guy but in any event um going way back to me on the table that doctor dr ladenheim he goes uh you're having what they call widow maker heart attack you know what that is and like it kind of self-explanatory but i was like kind of they had jacked me up on fentanyl so i was like no geez what is it I was very chatty.

Speaker 2 And he was like, it means in 80% of the cases where the patient has what you have, the patient always does. But you're going to be in the 20% because I'm good at my job.

Speaker 2 And he disappeared into my crotch and made magic. That's how they get to your fucking heart is through your dick, isn't it? No way.
They use a catheter? They go through. Catheter? No.

Speaker 2 Well, they go through your ephemeral art. They technically don't go through your dick, but it's right next to your dick adjacent.
As close as possible.

Speaker 2 Like, if somebody was fucking, if you were like, lick me where they fucking put that fuck, but lick me on my femoral.

Speaker 2 You're close enough to the dick where you might as well just fucking go over and give that one as well. So they went right through the ephemeral to the heart.

Speaker 2 And you know how they're always telling you like, oh boy, did a man's heart in his stomach? Bullshit, right through the fucking dick. Science, right there.
Science.

Speaker 2 So he told me that. And you know, I'd always been afraid of dying.
But like, you know,

Speaker 2 nothing I could do at that moment. Like all the fucking damage had been done, whatever I'd eaten, fucking my genetics, whatever the fuck led me to that moment.

Speaker 2 So all the fucking, like, why in the world wasn't going to help?

Speaker 2 So I just started facing the fact, like, since I was looking up, I was like, this might be the last ceiling I see for the rest of my life. And this may be the last room I'm in.
And what'd you wear?

Speaker 2 I was wearing a hockey jersey because I was doing a special. I was doing a stand-up special that eventually came out.

Speaker 1 It happened on stage that you had a heart attack.

Speaker 2 Not on stage. It was between two shows.
You know how when you go on a tape a show, you shoot two shows and they put the best of it together. We shot our first show.

Speaker 2 Then I went backstage and we had an hour before the next show. And in that hour, that's when it all fucking happened.
I was like sweating. I was like, can't fucking quite catch my breath and shit.

Speaker 2 So while I was laying on the table, I got comfortable with the notion of dying, like dying suddenly. I was like, oh shit, this is like graduation.
Like I left high school.

Speaker 2 like if i can leave this world if i left high school and high school is fun and i hated to see it end if i left that you know and the shit worked out i can leave this there's an ending of course there's an ending to everything there was a song fucking turn turn turn you got yeah beatles yeah well i don't know i think it was the birds but regardless the the i somebody will look it up for you yeah

Speaker 2 um and so you so so i was lying there and i was cool with the notion of like fucking dying i'd completely total peace with it where i was like you know what, man, like I had my time, like, and this is it.

Speaker 2 And like, you had a real good life, better than fucking most. You did some cool shit and whatnot.
There I was. Wow.
And I was like, so if this is the case, you look handsome for a dying guy.

Speaker 2 Not bad, right? Well, I was on stage previously, right? Oh, that's true. Right off stage.
No makeup, but still. But still.

Speaker 2 So I was like, if this is it, this is it. You know, like you push back from the table.
Don't be the last guy at the party that's like, hey, man, you got any more beer? Like, fuck off.

Speaker 2 And you had your time. So I was cool with that.
So I was okay with dying, utterly at peace. I was like, like, if it ends, it ends.

Speaker 1 Did you ever talk to anybody before? Sorry?

Speaker 2 Just the doctor, just the guy who was in my fucking crotch.

Speaker 1 Did you write a note to a kid or to your children?

Speaker 2 No, because it all happened so fast. Like my wife wasn't there.
The kid wasn't there. They didn't find out until after the fucking fact and shit.

Speaker 1 So the- So they had to get you on the table immediately.

Speaker 2 As soon as I got to the, they took me, picked me up from an ambulance from the Alex Theater in

Speaker 2 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 got to go if somebody gets hurt.

Speaker 2 That hospital was closer, but the first responders, the medics picked me up. Motherfucker saved my life.
I don't even know their names. I got to figure it, you know what?

Speaker 2 I got to go out and find their names. Yeah.
These two kids came in backstage at the Alex Theater and they were trying to put leads on me and shit. Which leads? You know, like

Speaker 2 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, whoa, man.

Speaker 2 Fucking, you never do that to a fucking heavy dude.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I was like, what are you talking about and they're like we gotta get these on you i was like well fucking i'll hold it out you reach under but there's too many fucking people in shit 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 to frame a shit when somebody show them all blue or whatever something like that where it's you know fucking just one of those wasn't that shifty where it's like uh-oh what does 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 like it'll look good for me and my job and stuff and he's like you never you ever been to the hospital before I was like no I visit people he goes oh you're gonna love it it's gonna be great like you're gonna love it huh he was he was selling it man maybe it works for a big farm or something well he thank god that dude made the call he did and her the two of them the two mics and they chose not to go to the hospital they're 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.

Speaker 2 Wow. And thank God they took me to that one.
And that guy who saved my life, Dr. Leidenheimer?

Speaker 1 Leidenheim. Leidenheim.

Speaker 2 Leidenheimer. He was,

Speaker 2 he

Speaker 2 got pulled in at the last minute and shit. Like all of it worked out.
But I saw another doctor, Dr. Paula, like months later, man.
Like after this all happened.

Speaker 2 After it happened, I went on Colbert and told the story. I told the story

Speaker 2 and shit like that, right?

Speaker 2 So I finally see Dr. Paula because we're going to go make Jay and Silent Bob reboots.
This is like 2019.

Speaker 2 And she's the doctor you see before you go make a movie or something that clears you, you know, especially for the director, because

Speaker 2 they got to insure you for the whole run of the show. Since 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.

Speaker 2 Like, we've read the reviews, but like, make sure he can direct on set.

Speaker 2 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 talk about it on TV everywhere. You talk about that heart attack.

Speaker 2 I was like, yeah, I know. And she's gone, and you keep talking about how like it was 80% chance of dying.
I was like, yeah. She's gone,

Speaker 2 I'm going to tell you right now. She's going, I'm going to 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.

Speaker 2 And I was like, get out of here. She's, yeah.
And there were four of us working at Cedars on a heart patient, you know, open heart. We're having the surgery.

Speaker 2 And all of a sudden, right in the middle of it, massive widow maker strikes. And I was like, well, if you're open heart surgery and have it in the hospital before doctors are, not the patient.

Speaker 2 One of the doctors drops to the fucking floor, has a massive heart attack. Wow.
And I was like, well, at least three other doctors and Cedar signed.

Speaker 2 She 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.

Speaker 2 But when it comes to the widowmaker, it ain't up to the doctor. She's going, I love Dr.
Layton.

Speaker 2 I'm, 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 of the day.

Speaker 1 Damn, he's not even any good.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 what it wants. She's going, So she's going, I heard you say 80%.
She's going, I just wanted to correct you. That's not true.
I was like, I always thought that was high. She goes, bullshit.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 She's like, the way you talk about it and shit, that's how most people think about it. It's true.
For the last five, six years, man, like this, no bullshit.

Speaker 2 Vonward. I love that.
Yeah, somebody made that for us.

Speaker 1 Fucking awesome. Very sweet of him.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 I 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,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I've had at least six people come in with heart ailments that reference you. He's going, sometimes they know exactly who you are.
They'll say Kevin Smith.

Speaker 2 He's going, a lot of times, I'll be honest, they say Kevin James, but they're talking about you.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 nut house like a year and a half ago.

Speaker 2 And so when I got out of there, like I put up a video on People Magazine and and shit. Sorry.

Speaker 1 It happened. I mean, everybody.

Speaker 2 You'll get there one day.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 yeah, I could be there this afternoon, but I'm hearing.

Speaker 2 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. Oh, but I pay for those.
$2.89 a can.

Speaker 2 This motherfucker can. 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.

Speaker 2 I'll just greet people. Like, there's a nice dude who greeted me in the fucking parking lot.
He goes, oh, man, I'm a big fan. Like, I loved your movies when I was a kid and shit.

Speaker 2 I'll be that guy, especially if I get to walk home with like fucking 12 packs.

Speaker 1 Just float home, dude.

Speaker 2 There's um, I ain't looking for free money, dude. I ain't that kind of like fucking

Speaker 2 carpet bagger, but just just, I just want to wet my beef. Drip a little on my tongue.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 just drip a little on my tongue. They, um, the, yeah, all of our cabinets are filled with, they've sent too much, actually.

Speaker 2 So, what, yeah, don't fucking say shit like that.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you, like, fucking how I

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 I'm going to start throwing cans of it into a schoolyard. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 Fucking make it rock. Fuck Kevin Smith.
Like, why? You don't go here. Like,

Speaker 2 watch the show. You'll understand.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to write, get an EKG to throw it into an elementary school.

Speaker 1 So was it.

Speaker 2 It's good I don't live here or work here, bro, because I'd be doing

Speaker 2 today and be like, hey, Theo, man, someone's in the parking lot. They really want to be on the show.

Speaker 1 I'm like, dude, oh, that's a shadow, bro.

Speaker 2 It tastes good, though.

Speaker 1 It tastes good. Oh, no, it tastes really good.
I'll have some, too, actually.

Speaker 2 Well, don't fucking, you know, don't follow me into the hole, dude. He'll bring it.
I got one here if you want to take spare.

Speaker 1 We have some of it.

Speaker 2 Can I get that again? Flavor said.

Speaker 1 Galaxy Vibe.

Speaker 2 Can I go?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 239 cans. So sometimes I'm in the 7-Eleven.
I'm like, I want to try Cosmic Vibe, but 239 is expensive. So now now I know I can just come here, fucking do a taste test, sample them all.

Speaker 1 What about mediocre vibe? What about how much is that?

Speaker 2 Fucking

Speaker 2 that's what I sell. Oh, wait.

Speaker 2 I never finished my Lexington story. Yeah.
It all started. I veered off cost course because I went in there.

Speaker 1 I was vegan. But no, but the heart stuff, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, but hold that fuck. Let me finish the, because this makes me laugh.
Okay. This, because this fucking happened.
So, so I'm in Lexington and I, oh, you rock. Fucking hey, man.

Speaker 1 There you go, dude.

Speaker 2 My man's hustling because he heard me like gunning for the job. I was like, I'll fucking be one of those guys.
He's like, oh, fuck that.

Speaker 2 We got vans. See, I'm halfway there and shit.

Speaker 2 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.
It's just, I do it to save my life.

Speaker 2 It's called Happy Cow. Wherever you are, you enter a thing, you know, like I'm where I am, and they'll tell you places you can find vegan food, vegan juice.

Speaker 2 It's helpful, right? So I'm in Lexington. I fucking enter, you know, like you can tell you, the app laughs at me and shit because they don't believe in that shit there at all.

Speaker 2 So there ain't no fucking vegan food to find, except, you know, you go to Burger King, get an impossible whopper without cheese. Or my kid told me, oh, White Castle does impossible sliders.

Speaker 2 So I was like, fuck, I'm going to go to White Castle, man. I passed a White Castle.
Yeah. I was like, so I go into the White Castle in Kentucky.
And I go up to the counter.

Speaker 2 I'm like, and I look up and there's impossible sliders. I said, can I get six? Impossible sliders.

Speaker 2 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 she goes into the like the freezer case for five minutes.

Speaker 2 Then comes out with a frozen ass fucking box with like fucking looked like Iceman, like fucking they unearthed it from the fuck primordial man trapped in icebergs.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 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. I'll wait.
So I'm sitting at the counter and all of a sudden I hear, no,

Speaker 2 no.

Speaker 2 And you know, but you know what that is.

Speaker 1 Somebody got their period at work.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And I'm like, good thing I carry tampons, ma'am.
Here you go.

Speaker 2 Usually when you hear that, that's somebody going like, hey, it's, it's you.

Speaker 2 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 made. And that's fair.

Speaker 2 I look like San Bob at all times and shit. So I turn around, not like egotistically, like, well, of course it's me, but I'm pretty sure that that hay is directed in my direction.
Yeah. No, no.

Speaker 2 And I turn around. He goes, just to 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.

Speaker 2 He's almost like a character out of one of my flex and shit. Stoned as Traveler of the Green.
Absolutely lovely. And he goes,

Speaker 2 you don't remember this, but you took me to the movies once. And I'm like,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So I was like, I'm here for two nights, you know, so tomorrow I got nothing to do. I'm going to go see Changing Lanes at this multiplex.
Anybody wants to come, I'll buy you a ticket and shit.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And it ran an article or a story ran about in Entertainment Weekly where, you know, they were like, there's a huge bump for changing lanes in. Kentucky, and that's because Kevin Smith took people out.

Speaker 2 So that dude was there. That's a great 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I was like, Yeah, man, he's all of our Batmans and stuff. And he goes,

Speaker 2 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. And he goes,

Speaker 2 We should call him.

Speaker 2 And I was like, Um,

Speaker 2 yeah, We don't know.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Now, you know, as previously mentioned, like I lost my mind a year and a half ago, went to a mental hospital for a while.

Speaker 2 Found out at the root of all my issues is I'm a 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.

Speaker 2 But really, any doctor will tell you, not right.

Speaker 2 So I, I.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 utility. If I'm like, I can be useful.
I could do this for you.

Speaker 2 I can make you laugh. I can fucking take care of your bills.
I could do this. That is how I know that I'm a worthwhile human being.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like there's no just natural value. unless I'm producing something.

Speaker 2 Yes. Unless I'm useful to somebody.
What the fuck am I doing and stuff?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But my people pleasing nature is like,

Speaker 2 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.
And he just started going, no, no, in White Castle.

Speaker 2 So I was like, all right, best of all possible worlds. Let me see if I can get this going.

Speaker 2 I was like, all right, you know what? I'm going to call him. So I pull out my phone and I call Jason Muse instead.
And so I call Jason and I'm like, Ben, hey, man, it's Kevin.

Speaker 2 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 Muse is texting me.

Speaker 2 And I pull the phone away and I text to Jason, be Ben Affleck on speaker. And then I go back to the phone and I go, Ben, Jason's fine.
He says hi. Anyway, I'm going to put you on speaker.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Like, he's like, Ben, I've been reading. Like, I feel bad for you, man.
You gotta, you gotta just hang in there, man.

Speaker 2 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 Zalabshrek back. And that guy went nuts.

Speaker 2 He was like, oh my God, he said that thing. And I was like, he always says that thing.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And that dude was so delighted, man. So delighted.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And then he's like, what about Muse? Can we call Jay now? And I was like,

Speaker 2 mercifully, the lady was like, six impossibles. Yes, thank you.
And out I went and stuff.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's a sweet story, dude. That made me.

Speaker 2 It only happened because I was vegan, bro. Oh, it's true.
So that's my, there it is. Go vegan.
No, don't go.

Speaker 1 That's your pitch for veganism.

Speaker 2 My pitch, if I had to pitch for it, it would be like,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 I feel that that's generally the case. So

Speaker 2 look, it was definitely the case with me.

Speaker 1 And if we look better, we will feel better.

Speaker 2 One imagines.

Speaker 2 But really, it's not like my whole life prior to the heart attack, I've been on a zillion diets and fucking Opti-Fest, did anything, everything but the surgery because I'm fucking scared of, you know, getting cut and shit like that.

Speaker 1 So the lat band surgery, you mean? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So like, you know, I've been that person that's like, man, what's the secret? How do you do it?

Speaker 2 And for years, people have just been saying, like, oh, you got to eat less and you got to exercise a lot more. I'm like, yeah, I know, but what's the real secret shit?

Speaker 2 I was never interested in being healthy. I just wanted to look normal like everybody else.
Yeah. And now, like, I've lost weight, but I don't look normal like everybody else.

Speaker 2 If I took my fucking gear off and shit, shit, like, I didn't sound like I got any surgery. Like, I got all this excess fucking skin that just hangs.
Does that start to go away, that skin? No.

Speaker 2 Can 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.

Speaker 1 Is there any way to absorb it back in or anything?

Speaker 2 I think so. With the aid of unstable molecules, if we were in a Marvel fucking comic, but no, bro, no.

Speaker 2 The skin being an organ, it just fucking distends. And if you've distended it, that's it.
So you could do this shit.

Speaker 1 But that's crazy.

Speaker 2 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 at liberty to say, but a friend of mine went through that.

Speaker 2 And a friend of mine was like, because my friend lost a lot of fucking weight. I think he's talked about it.

Speaker 2 You know what?

Speaker 2 Yeah. You know what I'm respectful? But he was like,

Speaker 2 I know you, dude, and I know your threshold for pain. He's going, you never.
ever want to do this. He's going, in retrospect, I would never do it again.

Speaker 2 He's the most pain I've ever been in my entire life.

Speaker 2 So, all right.

Speaker 2 We won't put it on if he hasn't said it publicly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Right. But, but, yes.
So,

Speaker 1 wow, that guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's my boy.

Speaker 1 That's amazing.

Speaker 2 He, if you go to the picture on the right, you can see like the one all the way over.

Speaker 2 That was just there. Sorry.
Yeah, that one. Like, there's the drapey skin, the creping effect they call it.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 2 So he looks good. I'd kill look like that.
Shit, that'd be amazing.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And then all of a sudden he looks at her and she's like, ah,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 That's right, right? I mean, and some people like that sort of shit. Oh, yeah.
That's my wife. I always

Speaker 2 talk about my wife in regards to like, you know, people ask

Speaker 2 various people about like, how do you succeed when I'm doing Q ⁇ A's or whatever?

Speaker 2 And I was like, it's, you know, success, you can't guarantee that anyone's ever going to be interested in your bullshit. I don't care who you are.

Speaker 2 Kevin Feige, that guy that makes all the Marvel movies and shit.

Speaker 1 Kevin Feige is his name? Kevin Feige.

Speaker 2 So probably the most successful producer in history, the only Kevin who must be saved at all costs because those movies rock.

Speaker 2 Even when Deadpool Wolverine was about to open up, which is now making what, up, 1.3 billion?

Speaker 2 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 that thing only exists because you want to do it so if you love it That's how you have to proceed.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 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.
It's very unique. Theo has a distinctive fucking voice.

Speaker 2 Every comedian has a very distinctive

Speaker 2 um you hope most storytellers do and stuff public speakers generally why people gravitate them toward them over and over again is like i like their perspective i like what they say that is as we're sitting in a place where i could drink any celsius i want proof positive that your voice is your currency because theo is spending his currency right his voice has built all this after that celsius i'm like you must be the richest man i know why would he be one cooler but we had uh

Speaker 2 don't on yourself. It's cooler.

Speaker 2 It's a talk. It's cool.
It's twerking me.

Speaker 1 It's cooler than you. It's like a New York City apartment.
I mean, it is cool.

Speaker 2 It really is. Somebody would pay at least $1,400 for that.
Where do you go in Jersey? Because you're a fucking road king. You're out there.

Speaker 1 I've been out there for years.

Speaker 2 You're in Jersey. Where do I go? I've seen it for years.
Whenever I've been at a club, I've seen your name and shit like that. Oh, sad.
Now I don't see your name at the clubs anymore, son.

Speaker 1 Same. Because

Speaker 2 you're in the bigger venues.

Speaker 1 We started getting into bigger venues. Oh, heavens, yeah.
And that's been interesting.

Speaker 2 So so where's jersey for you where do you do a show jersey let me think red bank yeah that's half my town bro that's right number one where i was born number two where jay and selling bob's secret stash the comic book store i've had for 27 years is that is in that town so you're talking about doing the count bezy yes count bezy theater and the vogel is right yeah

Speaker 2 that's where we went next time no bullshit next time you do count basey please let me know i have a movie theater that's like fucking

Speaker 2 20 minutes from there 15 minutes you grew up you had something you grew you grew up going to the movie theater that I grew up going to with my friends and whatnot.

Speaker 2 The one my dad took me to when I was a kid and whatnot. The one where I had so cool.
Oh, it's beautiful. And they were going to kill it and close it after COVID.
It's over 100 years old.

Speaker 2 So me and my friends got in and saved it. It's called Smodcastle Cinemas and whatnot.
And we do shit all the time. We just did Vulgarathon, which is like show every Viewscar Universe movie.

Speaker 2 So Clerks, Maul Ratch, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jane Silent Bob, Stregback, Clerks 2, Jane Silent Bob Reboot, and Clerks 3. So eight movies, 16 hours of movies.
We started at like Saturday morning at 9.

Speaker 2 We finished Sunday at like 5 in the morning. 700 fucking people in four different theaters and shit like that.
Nobody's doing it. That's awesome, dude.
So it's fun for shit like that. So

Speaker 2 we've had comedy there. I've done shows there.
Somebody shot a stand-up special there and whatnot.

Speaker 2 So if you're going to be in fucking Redbank, 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.

Speaker 2 And then you show up and then we just sit around bullshit.

Speaker 1 Dude, I would probably pick Family Man. I like that that movie.
Have you seen it?

Speaker 2 With Nicholas Cage? Yeah. It's a beautiful fucking movie.
Oh. That's really a Brett Ratner movie that a lot of people never talk about anymore.

Speaker 1 I thought that was one of his.

Speaker 2 If I remember correctly, but I remember the movie. It's very, it's a wonderful life.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Capra-esque. It's kind of like that vibe.
Is that the shit you fuck with? Yeah, I really love that. That's probably my favorite movie, I think.
I like League of Their Own. I love the Road.

Speaker 2 I love League of Their Own.

Speaker 2 I fucking lived across the street from Penny Marshall for years. And when I was like in my heyday of podcasts and and whatnot, I, you know, we started doing it at the house all the time.

Speaker 2 So she came over. Again, she like lived right across the street and Penny Marshall, bring her up.
I got to talk to her about League of Their Own.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Penny Marshall had big awakenings and a League of Their Own, back to back to back.

Speaker 1 She's a pretty fascinating lady.

Speaker 2 This was Laverne and Shirley. She was Laverne

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 1 Dude, we went and saw, we went to the town where, um,

Speaker 1 where uh, Rockford, we went to Rockford, Illinois and went to the museum there and went and saw like all the Rockford Peaches memorabilia and shit. Are you serious?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's pretty, pretty cool stuff.

Speaker 2 I love that movie. Do you cry when you watch that movie? Um, are you allowed to cry? The League of Their Own? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Are you a fucking butch dude and shit? No, often. 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.

Speaker 2 Like I saw Black Panther 2, and I came out and 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?

Speaker 2 They were very angry at me for that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I cried. I mean, if I saw it, yeah, I mean, I'll cry all the, I mean, yeah, I've cried.

Speaker 2 But you will put it out there.

Speaker 1 I've been crying. I mean, yeah, there's too many clips of me crying online.

Speaker 2 Is that right? Why? What makes you cry?

Speaker 1 Oh, just like thinking about stuff or talking about stuff. Like,

Speaker 1 I don't know. Like, earlier we were talking about like people pleasing, like thinking about

Speaker 2 you got issues, got MH issues, mental health, and stuff. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 First of all, hold on, there's a couple questions I want to ask so I don't forget.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 2 Heart attack.

Speaker 1 Heart attack.

Speaker 2 Heart attack. Sweating profusely, which I did quite a lot as a man who was over 300 pounds.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Felt like I'd be like, bang, hitting it hard and be like,

Speaker 2 and then just come back down. So I couldn't hit the top, couldn't quite catch my breath, so to speak.

Speaker 2 I was looking for the numbness in the arm because I was raised watching fucking Sanford and Son. So Elizabeth, this is the big one.
That's what he always did, clutch his arm and did this shit.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 These very subtle things that like I hate bile, dude. Totally.

Speaker 2 But you would, you could mistake that for like, oh, I was nervous or fucking, maybe I had some bad milk because I was a big milk drinker in those days. So you could

Speaker 1 nothing watching a big fella drink milk, dude.

Speaker 2 Can we just fucking turn on, bro? Seriously. I don't know which way you swing.
You would have watched me drinking the milk on the beard and stuff. You'd been like, I'm going bare.

Speaker 2 Because you're a total otter type. And it could have worked.

Speaker 1 An otter in the gay community?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Because there are odds.
If I had to, yeah, like Scott Mosier, people would always tell me, hey, man, there you go, son. Come on, that looks like a good time.

Speaker 2 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-uh.

Speaker 2 You know, I've been listening to lately that fucking song that was at the end of

Speaker 2 Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and it's Florence and the Machine. And it's happiness here.

Speaker 2 Keep going. Like a bullet to the bullet in the back.

Speaker 2 Let's just stop and appreciate the poetry of that line. All right.

Speaker 2 Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back.

Speaker 2 When was the last time you were ever hit by the happiness bullet in the back?

Speaker 1 That's a good question. I mean, I went to this recently.
I went to this.

Speaker 2 I mean, happy too. Like, because I'm sure every day you wake up and you're like, I'm Theo fucking fine.
I'm like, holy shit, my mouth. I use my mouth on people and I'm rich now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it's not for BJ.

Speaker 2 Well, oral's oral, my friend.

Speaker 2 Oral, you're in the mouth service business paint it any way you want we're all whores yeah being chatty is

Speaker 2 satisfied with the job and stuff I'm talking about like true happiness that has nothing to do with who you are like my friend Scott Mosier at one point he was just like what do you want to do

Speaker 1 if you could do anything in the world's my cast co-host yeah uh one of the smartest people I've ever known.

Speaker 2 He said, if you could do anything you wanted, he's going, you almost died a few years ago. So if you do anything you wanted,

Speaker 2 what would make you happy? And he goes, but it can't have anything to do with being Kevin Smith for a living or the movies or any of that. He's going, I'm just talking like normal ass shit.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But I had to reach into fiction and to the impossible to find something. I would ask other people, I asked my brother, and my brother, without missing a beat, he's like, Oh, I'd go on a world cruise.

Speaker 2 And I was like, What's that? He's like, Exactly what it sounds like. You just cruise around the world for like a year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, on a boat.

Speaker 2 But he knew. And I've, I, other people I talked to were like, oh, I'd do this.
It's a good thing. And there were normal ass things that are within one's doing.

Speaker 2 And I think my fucking radar is busted. And I imagine yours is as well

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And just by dreaming about it and doing it, we're putting a podcast together, just sitting around speaking your mind.

Speaker 2 You've gotten paid and you've gotten a bunch of people going, like, we fucking like what we support you and shit like that. When that scale exists,

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 financial success, creative success, personal success,

Speaker 2 when your highs

Speaker 2 are like,

Speaker 2 oh, let's get Alan Rickman Rickman to be in dogma,

Speaker 2 it's tough to find a normal high. You know what I'm saying? Like,

Speaker 1 yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 2 Is that 1% fucking rarefied view thinking?

Speaker 1 No, I don't know if I feel that.

Speaker 2 Does that make me instantly unrelatable?

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 2 i don't know uh

Speaker 1 isn't that crazy you can ask anybody listening to the show giving a hug to my brother or something like that or taking a walk with my brother somewhere is your brother your brother you your brother type yeah we're close so i think something like that um Um,

Speaker 2 what else?

Speaker 1 Spending time with uh,

Speaker 1 like a teacher or something that I grew up with.

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So, like, yeah, I think if there was something like that, I think it would make me like really happy. Maybe having a uh

Speaker 2 crazy that we have to reach into the grave to be like, well, that would make me really happy, yeah, but ultimately, the impossible, being in love with somebody, probably. Are you are you?

Speaker 1 No, I'm not. I have a tough, yeah, I have a, I, I, i have a tough like uh

Speaker 2 dick i wish huh tough dick chicks are like i ain't into that tough dick look at this yeah that's what my dick does tough

Speaker 1 my dick has a brass

Speaker 2 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 cochering yeah probably would but you know what i think i like your cell better because cochering some people i don't fuck with that but if you're like how would you like one brass knuckle on your dick a lot of people like

Speaker 2 as long as it's my choice, I don't want your brass knuckle on my dick.

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So you obviously have been a big comic guy and in that whole zeitgeist and it's been a big part of what made you

Speaker 2 awesome, right? It's honestly, like I was into that shit. Like if you watch Moll Rats in 95, it's a big part of it and stuff.
And the culture wasn't. Like the culture was like comic books.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So I got like a free fucking ride for for about a good 15, 20 years on a geek train that like I never had to make a comic book.

Speaker 2 I've directed some comic book shows like Supergirl Flash and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's lucky when

Speaker 2 what you do

Speaker 2 cheats.

Speaker 1 Yes. It's the same as.

Speaker 2 Do you feel that is where you are right now?

Speaker 1 No, I see.

Speaker 2 Did you feel you were an overnight success or it was like 10 years of a thing before fucking? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 It was for, it was a long time.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 Twice in one.

Speaker 1 But because he got into UFC and that rose. And I think it rose.

Speaker 1 He also helped it rise.

Speaker 2 But I ain't saying I'm Joe Rogan, but I too.

Speaker 1 But that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 It's a solid thing of love, just like him. That's what I'm saying.
Once again, though.

Speaker 1 It reminds me of that.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 1 I'm pretty sure they must have a deal.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 Not only he may have put in the work and shit, but now he's financially. Well, he was fighting.

Speaker 1 He was in on it early.

Speaker 2 He trained.

Speaker 1 Early in the middle of the day. 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.

Speaker 1 We had those. They were the ones watching that on the weekend.
Like, come watch it. It's like, it's like, you know, Willie the fucking, you know, short Willie versus fucking

Speaker 1 versus the violent homo or something. Like, that's a, who are these guys? And it would be like one guy would be like 400 pounds fighting a guy that was like 120 pounds.

Speaker 1 And it would just be like a massacre, you know? But that's when the UFC, there wasn't weight classes, all of that.

Speaker 2 Look at him. What a puppy.
It's like his news radio days. Yeah, I mean, he was.

Speaker 2 Believe me, I understand who Joe Rogan is today, and I love that.

Speaker 2 But you knew 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.

Speaker 2 So 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 could do 12 seasons. You could get through it

Speaker 2 every 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 He's interested. He's genuinely curious.
Yeah. That's the worst.

Speaker 2 But he's curious, but he also like fucking hits you with shit where you're like, no.

Speaker 2 Like, he's just that guy at the party where he's, you know,

Speaker 2 slowly the crowd gravitates around him, whether he's trying to magnetize him in, whether he's putting on a show or not, because he's just interesting.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 He was the first one that did this shit, though, where somebody, you're talking and then all of a sudden he's like, look that up. And somebody there's a reference person like helping out.

Speaker 2 We didn't have that in them early days. Yeah.

Speaker 1 A lot of the, like, I feel like there's less comedy movies these days. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2 No. I think there are less movies, period, these days.
Okay.

Speaker 1 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. Yeah.
Does that feel weird to you? Because they're not weird to you.

Speaker 1 Like, what are your thoughts on that? That it's like, I don't know if one, like, like,

Speaker 1 has

Speaker 1 eliminated the other, but it's just kind of

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 why is that? Why do we see these big, huge things? But it feels tougher for somebody to create

Speaker 1 just like a good comedy these days.

Speaker 2 I think good comedy went to TV and to streaming.

Speaker 2 Because they needed to fill coffers quick, you know, to fill programming schedules quick. So

Speaker 1 the Marvel Universes and all the comic book universes, did they kill off like this the guy 100% no.

Speaker 2 Studios like to make money. They're in a 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.

Speaker 2 They're just like, look, more risk, more reward.

Speaker 2 And when I first started, you had there was television, there was movies. Now there are many more options and many more places to go.

Speaker 2 So instead of doing, you you know, and you'll see it like an eight or six or eight episode show where you're like, could have been 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.

Speaker 2 So I think, you know, never mind comedy,

Speaker 2 I'd be more curious, hey, where did the indie film go? Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I think the indie film moved, was taken over by Netflix. Once Netflix came in, number one, they started buying cheap movies.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And that's where all the interesting ideas are going and finding a home.

Speaker 2 You're somebody who wants to tell an off-beat story and you're looking at this Sisyphian task of like, I got to roll this fucking boulder up the hill.

Speaker 2 Like every time I make a movie, it's like, fuck, here we go. This is going to be fucking tough.
Or you walk into these cats and they're like, what's it about how esoteric is it interesting

Speaker 2 go ahead can you make it six episodes can you make it eight

Speaker 2 that's preferable and that's where all the interesting programming has slowly gravitated toward 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.

Speaker 2 Like, you know,

Speaker 2 what was fucking Jason Bateman's show, Ozark? Yeah. 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.

Speaker 2 Instead of getting a sequel, you just get another season.

Speaker 1 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? Because like that one guy in it. And Ozark?

Speaker 2 Yeah. I didn't watch the whole show.

Speaker 1 And she's an example. It started to get redundant.
Like, it started to.

Speaker 2 But now, for some reason, I really want to play Gay Clue.

Speaker 1 Does that exist?

Speaker 1 No, they should have that, right?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Like, he did it in. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It was like.

Speaker 2 What do you use the candlestick for? They're like, find out.

Speaker 1 Samuel's been in the billiard room for a while.

Speaker 2 In the conservatory. Not being very conservative.

Speaker 1 Wow. I've never used that to cue my pool stick before.
What's that thing called?

Speaker 2 To chalk.

Speaker 2 I'm going to chalk that way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So that's interesting.

Speaker 2 I think that's part of it. Believe me, I'm not like, and that's exactly what happened.
No, it's cool. I think that's part of it.

Speaker 2 I think, you know, Netflix came in disrupted the business as we all know in a 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 television 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.

Speaker 2 And they started doing streaming and whatnot. It just really, it broke the model.
It's kind of nuts. So right now, I think

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I 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.

Speaker 2 And some people wonder if, like, will people ever go back to movies the way they used to and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 They're not going to go unless you give them something they can't get anyplace else.

Speaker 2 So they'll go to the theaters to see Deadpool Wolverine because, like, I ain't going to be able to watch this at home for like six months. So fuck it.

Speaker 2 But what if you tell them a story going back to your voice as your currency they've never heard before and the only place they could see it is in a theater. And right now theaters are hurting.

Speaker 2 So they'll fucking take anybody. It doesn't matter.
It used to be tough to get screens. Now, are you fucking kidding me?

Speaker 2 You can make a deal with AMC, a private deal with your own independent movie where you're like, can I get 100 screens and we'll do a door split or whatever the fuck?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You know, back in the day, I made this movie, the 430 movie, and it's about how in this 80s your new film. This is the new film that's coming out September 13th.

Speaker 2 In the 80s, we used to pay for one movie and then jump from theater to theater to theater to go see movies for free. I own that movie theater that I used to do that in.

Speaker 2 We'd get caught, and you might get the risk of being banned from that theater for fucking life.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 You could stay as long as you fucking want. Call your friends.
Have them come just to get fucking bodies through the goddamn door.

Speaker 2 So 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.

Speaker 2 We're just using film as an example. Fuck, now is your time.
Like, you could actually make a thing and have it be in a goddamn movie theater.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And that also has, it's been proven, like, through the algorithm, when

Speaker 2 Amazon did Air, Ben Affleck's movie Air, they put it in theaters and they spent

Speaker 2 AIR about Air Jordans, the history of the Air Jordans sneaker.

Speaker 2 They put it in theaters traditionally and spent money on advertising, even though Amazon has Prime and really

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, Amazon and other streamers broke the theatrical model. And here they're going like, wouldn't it be novel?

Speaker 2 Like us with Smodcast going like, wouldn't it be weird if somebody paid for an ad on our show?

Speaker 2 These cats are like, wouldn't it be novel if we put the movie out and it paid for ads and people saw a trailer and then went to the movies theater to see it, would it make it more valuable when we then put it on Prime?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 in it. but you will pass it by.
Yeah, it feels crazy.

Speaker 1 So there's something about just watching a movie that's just on Netflix or on a street.

Speaker 2 Isn't that crazy? Yeah,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 All he's done is make clerks of Jay and Zanbob Great. 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And now is the time for another indie filmmaking, indie filmmaking movement.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Could you imagine if some, if the only way you got to do your show is if somebody told you, okay, now you could go.

Speaker 2 No, 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Every once in a while, you'll whip a tusk on them. They're like, well, that's fucking weird.
But generally speaking, like he does those Jay and Salamba movies and shit.

Speaker 2 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 TikTok.

Speaker 2 I mean, I love TikTok, don't get me wrong, but like people that spend their time like doing little videos and shit. If you're a filmmaker, make your fucking film, man.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So people who are telling these offbeat stories on streamers, they are essentially studios at this point.

Speaker 2 When I started an indie film, it was like us outside of Warner Brothers and fucking, you know, 20th Century Fox and Paramount going like, well, they'll never let us play.

Speaker 2 So just because they won't let us in don't mean I can't do it on my own. The streamers are that now.
So if you're out there going like, well, Netflix will never give me a fucking thing. Great.

Speaker 2 Go do your fucking thing without them. Hang your own fucking shingle.
It's time. People are hungry for that.

Speaker 1 Do you think it's a good idea to sell direct to consumer, right? Like 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?

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 1 And we're like, could we just put it on a website and sell it right there to people?

Speaker 2 100%. 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 going to watch the movie.

Speaker 2 And afterwards, we're going to talk about it. All right.
So enjoy the show. And then you get to fuck off for 90 minutes.
Then you come out.

Speaker 2 And it's all crowd work because you're just answering fucking questions. That's it.
You have the ability to do that. Why do you fucking need anybody else?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 on screens for like two fucking days.

Speaker 2 And you'll make like 10 million bucks and they'll write stories about how fucking smart you are. So you don't need anybody, Theo.
You have the distribution fucking mechanism already in place.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You 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 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 do a comedy show afterwards and stuff you get charged the same thing and all that money goes right to the flick and then you would have a student then you would have money now then you could start making other cool movies and have your friends be like this is a story

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 What do you mean, free again? Because I'm like, I like this world. Just free, meaning you could do whatever you want.

Speaker 1 You can do what you want.

Speaker 2 But you could always do whatever you want. You got the ability to do that.
You just have to.

Speaker 2 Together. But you already show it on a regular basis.

Speaker 2 You are.

Speaker 2 Again, I cannot fucking stress this enough. That Celsius fucking container is huge.
They don't give that to just anybody.

Speaker 2 It's It's massive.

Speaker 2 It's like I walked into a 7-Eleven or at least a fucking.

Speaker 2 I'm going to pee really fast, actually.

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Speaker 1 I hated it when

Speaker 2 hold on a second. No way, man.
No, I'm going. You coming with me?

Speaker 2 We're doing it. Take my hand.
We're going. We're filming Louise and this shit.

Speaker 2 They died, didn't they? Yeah, but they live forever. That's true.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 Because they're in a movie.

Speaker 2 Look, Theo, everybody dies.

Speaker 2 Not everybody truly lives.

Speaker 2 Facts, huh? I took that from Braveheart.

Speaker 1 You did?

Speaker 2 I mean, that's where it came from.

Speaker 1 There's a new Asian kind of Braveheart movie coming out. I saw a preview for it.

Speaker 1 How do you know when, keep it on movies, how do you know when, have you ever...

Speaker 2 Shouldn't movies be like

Speaker 2 national cuisine? Like you were going, there's an Asian

Speaker 2 Braveheart coming out. Shouldn't there be one for every country?

Speaker 2 Like recently we were talking about, I saw on Netflix they had this movie called called beneath paris which is jaws in france oh shouldn't every country have its own jaws we were talking about this on holiday yeah they should podcast i do with ralph garmin at flappers and stuff and i was like every country should have its own jaws like 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 here are our best athletes It should be like, here is our best shark movie, killer shark movie.

Speaker 2 Because everybody can get away with that.

Speaker 2 And the fucking, you know, there aren't a lot of killer shark movies now it seems cheap now like cheap to do like i guess like doing shark is 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 one having each country each nation represented by what they feel is their best possibility like saving private reginald or something like in africa or something or if they had like um

Speaker 2 World War II.

Speaker 1 No, I was just thinking of like a different, like if you had, say, like we have Saving Private Ryan. Yeah.
If they had.

Speaker 2 Let's just keep it to sharks, though. Saving Private Ryan.
Don't jump in a fucking war film.

Speaker 1 But I'm saying, like, Saving Private Ryan.

Speaker 2 Before we can do.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 2 every nation gets to make every movie for themselves. We've, we start basic.
You start with the shark thing. Okay.
We'll get to like Saving Private Richard and shit like that. We're

Speaker 2 saving Heinrich, right? Because that would be the other side of the war. Yeah.
Or something like that.

Speaker 2 But just a shark fucking picture. Every nation going, like, this is it.
Fucking arms race. Yeah.
Just like.

Speaker 1 Like, oh, there's a dangerous koi, and it's like a Japanese one or whatever. Koi.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's got to be shark.
We got to have rules.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they have sharks in some places.

Speaker 2 That's the thing. It's like, it's a fucking movie.

Speaker 2 What do you eliminate it for? Yeah, you're right. Like, hey, man, in real life, fuck real life.
This is a movie to you. Say it a podcast.
Michigan. Fucking shark movie.

Speaker 1 Jaws of Michigan.

Speaker 2 Yes, bitch.

Speaker 1 It's just a guy in a fucking hot dog eating contest.

Speaker 2 Here's how it happened, right? So fucking every night when the Coney Dog place closes, they got leftover Coney Dogs Dogs that go bad.

Speaker 2 Dude 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.

Speaker 2 He's been eating these fucking hot dogs, so he's fucking massive and shit.

Speaker 2 Wow, dude, I'm already in. It's fucking awesome.

Speaker 2 I'm already in. Dude, call David Spade.
Let's write that.

Speaker 2 Finance, self-finance that fucking movie.

Speaker 2 Honestly, I had a conversation with my friend Logic.

Speaker 2 There's me going, fucking

Speaker 2 big name for you. Logic was in the middle of the screen.
I like Larthy.

Speaker 2 He's an amazing dude. Logic is in the 430 movie.
And when he shot his, he is. When he shot his scene, we'd already finished the movie and stuff, so he could watch it.

Speaker 2 So 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.

Speaker 2 He's like, before even hip-hop, I loved movies and stuff. He'd go, I found hip-hop through movies.
I found Wu-Tang through Quentin and stuff like that. He's like, I always wanted to make a movie.

Speaker 2 I almost made a movie with JJ. And I was like, JJ? And he's like, yeah, he's like, but it didn't happen.

Speaker 2 I I was like JJ from good times no yeah fucking JJ like JJ dynamic kid dynamite yeah what was his name JJ JJ Abrams is the director I was talking about

Speaker 2 I love that you went with

Speaker 2 JJ I'm thinking of JJ Evans JJ Evans James Evans Sr.

Speaker 1 I saw him at the airport once

Speaker 2 what Jimmy Walker Jimmy Walker that's who I'm thinking of yeah there he is legend oh yeah kid dynamite dynamite um all right so wait

Speaker 2 so JJ so JJ, I was like, I was surprised that he,

Speaker 2 that he hadn't made, you know, fucking J.J. Abrams.
Yeah. He made fucking one of the Star Wars, two of them.
You'd imagine it could happen, but he's like, it just didn't happen.

Speaker 2 I said, well, is it difficult? Is it expensive? And he goes, no, it's kind of like clerks. It's set in one location.
And I was like,

Speaker 2 what could, what, what, is it on the moon? 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.
Like, it is legit good. He is born to be a filmmaker.

Speaker 2 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, I mean, this fucking dude's good at anything.

Speaker 2 Jake Abrams? Yeah, no, fucking logic. Oh, logic.
Logic, fucking, like, he could do a Rubik's Cube in front of you in like 12 seconds. Yeah.
Like, he just,

Speaker 2 he's so crazy fucking talented shit. But him as a filmmaker, this movie, Paradise Records, it's going to be fucking hit huge.
It is fucking awesome. He's the star.

Speaker 2 And his friend Tremaine is the second lead. And his friend T-Man is absolutely wonderful in the movie.
But this dude wrote, directed, and fucking starred in it.

Speaker 2 And I was like, so incredibly impressed because he's a legit great actor. Like, as, you know, because I cut every frame.
I saw every frame of the fucking footage.

Speaker 2 I was there on set when they 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 unnatural.
So that movie is fucking wonderful, man.

Speaker 1 Paradise Records.

Speaker 2 Paradise Records will be out next year.

Speaker 1 How do you know? I want to ask you a little bit more about

Speaker 1 the 430 movie, but it comes out September 13th. September 13th.

Speaker 2 Ken Jiang is in it. He's amazing.
It's kind of the story of my young life. It's a story of the first date that I had in high school and stuff with my girlfriend.
Like going to a movie, right?

Speaker 2 I took her to the Flicks.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 If you've ever listened to Smodcast back in the day when me and Scott Mosia used to do it, there was this episode we did.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 Like real existential crisis shit before I ever made made clerks wondering what my future would be and stuff so we played him on this podcast and like scott like mercilessly fucking died laughing he just would attack a guy's like oh my god you sound so fucking dumb but they were it was kind of wonderful to listen to anyway the movie is kind of based on that so like it's based on that version of emo kev as we call them in the podcast okay

Speaker 2 ride around on his bike and be like when is my life gonna begin so it's that kind of thing like there's kind of cool there's a story.

Speaker 2 There's a, Bear McCreary did our score, and he's absolutely wonderful composer, but him and his brother did a song that ends the movie and it's a fucking jam. It's total earworm.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You just fucking created it and shit. But it's called 24-carat case of love.

Speaker 2 Because in the movie, as in real life on the episode of Smodkist that we did years ago, you hear me talking about my ex-girlfriend and I was like, I got a 24-karat case of love and that's what broke mosier up the most he was like you unbelievable

Speaker 2 you know he just attacked me and so i put that in the flick so baron mccreary and his brother write this closing song for the movie and he goes you got to listen to it man i think you'll like it and the hook of the song is i got a 24 karat case of love and i was like oh my god so i wrote to baron i was like bro you took the dumbest

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 He's going, you saying, I got a 24-karat case of love is the kind of thing that a 16-year-old boy says. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because it's 24-karat real strong or it's kind of mid.

Speaker 2 Strong. That was for me.
Nothing gets stronger than a fucking 24-karat, because we didn't have diamonds in our world. I was lower, lower, lower, lower, low.
We were poor. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So like 24-karat gold is that my mom had a 24-karat gold wedding band. Oh, yeah.
So 24-karat case of love, that's...

Speaker 1 My sister's divorced, too. Is that right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 But he was 24-karat. So he took things from those moments where you were riding around the room.

Speaker 2 Well, he took that exact fucking line and made it the hook for the song. And he's like, never fucking regret saying that.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 Dude, there's something so magical.

Speaker 2 So wait, were you raised in Tennessee?

Speaker 1 I was raised in Louisiana.

Speaker 1 What part? Yeah, in a place called Covington, Louisiana.

Speaker 2 Are you serious? Yeah. So how far is that from like

Speaker 1 from one hour from New Orleans north?

Speaker 2 We shot Jamestown Bob Reboot there that was a fucking fantastic place no way oh my god Louisiana so fucking good to us yeah like I'll always that was a movie I made you premiered a movie there too didn't you well we went to the joy theater yeah and showed Jane Salon Bob Reboot when we were on tour but we shot there and that was the post-heart attack movies that was a 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 Sal and Bob Reboot and so we had to go to Louisiana We couldn't do it in Jersey because it's a road movie and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 And 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.

Speaker 2 We actually shot on Mardi Gras at the courthouse because they were like, that's the only day we're closed. We're like, great, we'll use the courthouse that day.
But everyone was so fucking cool, man.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I didn't even get that fucking far, man. It was just like at work probably too.

Speaker 1 When you're putting a movie together, it's a lot. How do you know when,

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Because 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.

Speaker 2 It's begun. You spend so much time trying to get to that moment that when the moment happens, you're you're already prepared.
You better be fucking prepared.

Speaker 2 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 this.
You wanted this. Right.

Speaker 2 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, this is more helpful if it didn't work.
One is like,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 Was the alternative to not do the thing?

Speaker 2 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 cancer.

Speaker 2 That's sad when you know you can accomplish a thing, but you don't do it because you're like, nah, well what if somebody don't like it like i mentioned before like you dropping this so scary though is all creativity scary butthold of somebody think about that's why this is a safe environment you create a thing where you're like this is my rules my house and i 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 could avoid sidestep the world of rejection and the world of no.

Speaker 2 You enter here and you created a world of yes for yourself.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 it's taken 10 years to get to that movie. That's amazing.

Speaker 1 We've been working on this, trying to get this movie together. All the agents haven't done anything.

Speaker 1 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 you've dude based on that celsius case

Speaker 2 there's no

Speaker 2 way that you don't have enough of your own

Speaker 2 you probably got in your pocket just be like oh i wish dude you can have that thing brother i'm sitting in that it is uh it is uh so

Speaker 2 possible to do.

Speaker 2 I tell my kid all the time, my kid who, again, I fucking

Speaker 2 your daughter. My daughter, Harley.

Speaker 1 She's in one of the movies.

Speaker 2 She's in Quentin's movie. I 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.

Speaker 2 So I always lead with that movie. She's in the Quentin Tarantino movie.
Believe me, she leads with that too. She never leads with like, yeah, I was in Jay and Salon Bob Reboot.

Speaker 2 But she played Jay's daughter in Jay and Salon Bob Reboot.

Speaker 1 Johnny Depp's daughter. What was the one was she? Was that who it was? Yoga Hosers.

Speaker 2 Yoga. I got beat the fuck out of.
I mean, you think I got beat up for putting a picture of myself crying on the internet. Yoga hosers, I got fucking, ooh, they were like bend over and it went in dry.

Speaker 2 So dry.

Speaker 2 I remember the AV Club is like, ew, Kevin Smith and Johnny Depp are going to force us to watch a play date with their children. And it's like, bro, you don't have to watch it.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 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 Ain't a Cool News.

Speaker 2 And he had written some shit about me, but it was incorrect. That was the thing.
Like if somebody wrote something about me as their opinion, what the fuck? Hurts, but it's like you can't do anything.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I was like, hey, I'm Kevin Smith, and you said this shit about me. I was like,

Speaker 2 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 going to go out and say things and stuff.

Speaker 2 And 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 any cool news, a bunch of people will jump to your defense.

Speaker 2 And that's how I like to hang out at night. And that blew my fucking mind.

Speaker 2 This was in the year 2000, I want to 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.

Speaker 2 So I was there. I'm not saying that was the first troll, but that was my, one of my first trolls.

Speaker 1 And he said he liked doing it because he liked the.

Speaker 2 That's how he spent his night.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I'm not anymore because I understand that's cheap entertainment for somebody. Like, fuck going to the movies or fucking like going out to dinner.

Speaker 2 It's like, I'm going to fucking order some fucking pizza and let's have a postmates, and I'm just going to jump online and be like, this guy's chilly or whatever.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 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 so it helps i mean 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 a b on the paper and she put that shit up on the fridge the fridge is just the world at this point.

Speaker 2 And you hope that it's good enough that the paper goes up and gets noticed and shit.

Speaker 2 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 like it's entertaining to watch other people blood in the water and shit like that.

Speaker 2 But then there are people who legitimately fucking hate you and what you do. Like and hate watch you.

Speaker 2 Just the way like 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.

Speaker 2 And I, and I've been around on the internet internet long enough where I know like I am one of those figures and shit, but it always baffles me.

Speaker 2 Like I, you know, I put up a fucking post on my Instagram today about, hey, I'm doing this podcast with my kid, beardless dickless me.

Speaker 2 And naturally, yeah, naturally. That's your daughter? That's my kid, that's Harley.
She's a good kid, man. She's got a good head on her shoulders and shit.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 and i was like you know what i'll do it for you i'll try for a few months and i 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 she 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 so she did but can you still get erection if you're vegan or not like an erection can you still do you still have like a i'm hard now son yeah yeah i mean fuck yeah you get you get very hard even what would be the idea in not getting hard as a vegan i just didn't not enough red meat in your head.

Speaker 1 Yeah, something like that if you don't have enough iron or whatever.

Speaker 2 Um, I'm on blood thinners because of the heart attack.

Speaker 1 Does that help your wiener get harder?

Speaker 2 No, in fact, it's a little more challenging.

Speaker 2 Uh, not challenging. It's just the

Speaker 2 hard-on you get ain't it's workable. It's fuckable dick.
Yeah. But it's not like, oh my God, this can fucking crack steel.
Oh, yeah. You're Jackie Chan with like eight fucking things.

Speaker 2 I've never had that one. Oh, I do in the morning.
That's the morning wood. Oh, fuck, dude.
I wake up with a hard-on that could, that's impressive.

Speaker 2 If I was a dick pic guy, that's what 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.

Speaker 2 So we've been together like 25 fucking years almost or over. And, you know, at this point,

Speaker 2 I understand that I'm going to wait until like one or two. So I'm always, I'm a little sad because I'm not saying she's missing out.
She ain't missing shit. She fucked me now.
She knows.

Speaker 2 She model, you know, I was saying before, I tell people all the time, like, you can achieve your goals. You just have to modify modify your expectations.

Speaker 2 I was like, you know, my, 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.

Speaker 2 She was a cheerleader. She dated fucking football players.
Your wife did?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And we've been together for fucking course, you know, centuries. So

Speaker 2 if you modify, some people are like, that's lowering. I'm like, no, no, no.
Modifying Modifying your expectations. You can be happy if you just modify what you expect and shit.

Speaker 1 Do you have sex under the covers when you're married or on top of the covers?

Speaker 2 Oh, 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,

Speaker 2 you're one of those dudes who probably are making out. It's like in the movies and shit.
You make out and then you push back and you take your shirt off. Like, that's a part of the seduction.

Speaker 2 I walk out of the room. I could never do that.
If I did that and stepped back, took my shirt off, my tits came out, they'd be like, oh, let me slurp on those little fucking hammocks.

Speaker 2 You take them, you take your shirt off, don't you?

Speaker 1 No, sometimes I will, sometimes I won't. I'll walk out of the room backwards, though, because

Speaker 1 I don't like people seeing my butt, I guess.

Speaker 2 Are you serious? So I'll come on, huh? Not that I think it is.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 2 It's your least attractive feature.

Speaker 2 Well, I think it's fine, but it's like after everyone's already, the situation's gotten all cummy and shit, and everybody's on a different plane altogether, and their senses are coming back.

Speaker 2 You're like, they see my ass, I'm fucked. Well, turns out you were just fucked.
At that point, they could see your ass.

Speaker 2 Job's done, son.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but nobody can see your butt while you're making love to them.

Speaker 1 It's just the way it's all how God did it.

Speaker 2 If that is not the title of your biography,

Speaker 2 I object. Nobody can see your butt if you're making love to them.
The Theo Vaughn story.

Speaker 2 And other whimsical notions by Theo Vaughn.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but it's like you're only if you're.

Speaker 2 You think your ass is your worst feature? No, I don't. 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. Don't look at me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's just like, okay. Never mind the man.

Speaker 2 Pay attention to the man. No attention to the man behind the curtain.
Your ass is the Wizard of Oz. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Your dick is what they all see. Your ass is the actual wizard.
Oh, yeah. Pulling levers and shit.

Speaker 1 My wiener's the cowardly lion.

Speaker 2 Dude.

Speaker 1 If I only had it.

Speaker 2 Blood thinner is a, yeah, but to go back to the original question, you can be vegan and get the job. Okay.
You're just very easily.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 You think so?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So I'm myopically clever on one very small plane, which has kind of worked out.

Speaker 1 Make managing yourself well.

Speaker 2 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, I don't know nothing.

Speaker 2 But I'm like, motherfucker, like, I'm, don't play me. Like, I write your character.
I know what your intelligence level really is and stuff.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I met him at some meetings and stuff.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's far away. I think he's about that.

Speaker 2 We did a whole podcast for years, and we still kind of quasi-dude. Jay and Silent Bob Get Old, which is fucking, he's coming up, I think, on his 14th anniversary of being sober.

Speaker 2 And the podcast was predicated on, like, we'd 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 it was all about keeping him sober.

Speaker 2 So he would sit there and tell his story about

Speaker 2 one time I did this. So it was kind of like going to a very fun AA meeting where everyone else was drinking except the guy who was witnessing and shit like that.
And we got.

Speaker 2 Over 100, 200 episodes out of that and shit. It was crazy.
And we toured off of that. Like Jason from the movies, he didn't really make a lot of of money being in Kevin Smith films.

Speaker 2 You don't make money being in Kevin Smith films. You don't make them

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So I know you're smart.

Speaker 1 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 like my information and how I, it's hard to get it like clear from my brain to my mouth sometimes.

Speaker 1 And I think I get afraid to speak up on certain things.

Speaker 2 Like, um, I don't know, man. I'll say, I don't know because some people search

Speaker 2 Sanders and you

Speaker 2 seem very well fucked up. Yeah, I mean, I had a literally watched that for a few minutes and was like, that was fun, dude.
I was like, this, like, I could not have done that.

Speaker 2 I could talk to people, but I'd be like,

Speaker 2 Bernie, did you ever see clerks? 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.

Speaker 2 So I don't think I could hold that conversation, but you did and you sounded intelligent. Thanks, man.

Speaker 2 And I don't mean like he sounds smart, but you represent like, that's why when you're like, I don't know, nothing, that's bullshit.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Well, there's some made me happy to come because Jordan, Jason Muse's wife, she runs our business. She was like, oh, I fucking, she's, I was like, I got to go.
I'm going.

Speaker 2 She's like, where are you going? I said, I'm going to Theo Vaughn's Pocket. She goes, oh, fucking.
She goes, that's right. I love him.
Oh, I said. I was like, you fuck with him?

Speaker 2 And she goes, oh, you you think he's so funny and shit like that?

Speaker 1 What's her name? Jordan Monsanto. That's sweet of her, man.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think, well, he cares about some of the same stuff I do.

Speaker 2 I believe me, as our business manager, I'm going to go with her. I was like, I'm going to take a picture of this.
That's his case. I'd be like,

Speaker 2 we're doing

Speaker 2 this shit wrong. I know people in the audience are like, stop talking about it, but you don't know.

Speaker 2 You don't know, kids. I know what that means.
I'm like, this guy's figured it the fuck out, man. I don't want to.
Do you have a network? Or is it just your show?

Speaker 1 No, just us. Really? Yeah.
It's just us.

Speaker 2 If you ever start a network, I'll be on it.

Speaker 1 You will? Fucking heartbeat.

Speaker 2 Are you kidding me? Fucking get, I'll get.

Speaker 1 We'll plug you in in the other room, dude.

Speaker 2 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.
We'll never sleep. I do my shit at home in a spare room.

Speaker 1 I started in my kitchen, man. And now we just have to have a place for people to be at to work.

Speaker 1 What is that?

Speaker 2 What do you mean? Like, so while the show is not going on, you need people in an office.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just the producers just so they can

Speaker 1 be around.

Speaker 2 Isn't it crazy, like, the infrastructure that, like... We don't have much.

Speaker 1 We have three.

Speaker 2 And we're a huge operation yeah but yeah it's

Speaker 2 a place like this unless they're giving you this place free you got to pay for it 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

Speaker 1 jay

Speaker 2 you and muse in a movie bro never mind david spit 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

Speaker 2 hold on

Speaker 2 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's 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.

Speaker 2 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 would be like, yes, bitch.

Speaker 2 You could come in and play fucking Jay's brother who's never been in a movie before. Jordan Monsanto, the person who's that's that's Jordan, Jay's wife, Jordan, who runs our company and shit.

Speaker 2 She produces the movies and stuff. She does.
Yeah, she's been our producer for years. She's been producing since like Tusk.

Speaker 1 Wow, she's really smart. Fuck.

Speaker 2 Smarter than both you and I. And I know how smart you are, as previously said.

Speaker 2 You know, that's smart, though. She ain't got one of those fun.

Speaker 1 You wrote this character. I'm not even, I'm fictional.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you, bro, you playing Jay's brother. Wow, really, dude? 100%.

Speaker 2 I mean, look, I ain't offering you no great shakes. Being in a Kevin Smith movie helps nothing.

Speaker 1 No, I just heard it doesn't make any money. Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true. And that's their daughter, Logan.
And then they have a little boy now named Lucy, and he wasn't alive when we did this picture.

Speaker 1 He came afterwards uh that was clerks three so yes yeah so it's dope beef that they got two dispensaries that have in dope beef basically yeah that's cool it's a war yeah we need that kind of fucking shit it'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.

Speaker 2 if i can get i could

Speaker 2 I could get between eight to ten for a Jay and Salambob type thing, Clerks 3 thing, the 430 movie, which is coming out September 13th.

Speaker 2 Presumably, that's what we're here to talk about, but I just came to hang out. I just came for the self-sufficiency.

Speaker 1 No, I want to talk a little bit more about the 44-year-olds.

Speaker 2 We don't have to. But the 430 movie cost $3 million.
Wow. Saban financed that.

Speaker 1 And was it Saban? Saban. Saban.
Have they financed some of your other films, too?

Speaker 2 They did Jane Salon Bob Reboot. Okay.
Years and years ago, they also did the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Speaker 1 Did they,

Speaker 1 and how much can you make a real return on a movie like that?

Speaker 2 You can make a return. You can make your money back and make a little scratch.

Speaker 2 I think that's,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So a lot of people are like, well, it's got to be fucking 20 million or 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.

Speaker 2 It's like, we'll get there. We'll cram it into that fucking number.
I'll be right back. Because the privilege.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And the privilege of like making a movie.
Like, everyone don't get to do that.

Speaker 2 It's a weird fucking proposition where you say to to somebody, like, can you give me a lot of money to make pretend?

Speaker 2 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 like my job is such, it's full of shit, man. It's a pack of lies.

Speaker 2 Basically, what I try to do in life is capture, 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.

Speaker 2 So it was like all

Speaker 2 Madison County.

Speaker 2 I mean, I guess, absolutely, to some degree, right?

Speaker 2 If that was your speed or whatever the fuck. But like the idea of

Speaker 2 like I was on set, and I guess it was because the 430 movie is the first movie.

Speaker 1 430 is cool because it's like in the 80s, is it 80s or 90s? 80s.

Speaker 2 It takes like 18s, 1980s.

Speaker 1 Yeah, dude, it just had this, like 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 like um

Speaker 1 like nirvana or something yes put together over and over 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 part of my repertoire

Speaker 2 um it's you've exactly you've nailed the feeling of me trying to capture that feeling essentially

Speaker 2 you know in movies we weren't that rich oh my god were you rich no we weren't but where'd you get i heard about shag carpet and i thought that's what you were supposed to do.

Speaker 1 You heard about it.

Speaker 2 Did you have carpet, period? Oh, yeah, we had to do it. Yeah, we had wall-to-wall.
You like the cheap shit. Yeah, not, you know what? Yeah, rugs are expensive.
Carpeting is less expensive.

Speaker 1 You could pee on our carpet.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, and others did on ours.

Speaker 2 Protest and sometimes.

Speaker 2 Capturing the moment, though, being a liar for a living and shit like that. That is what making movies is all about.
That's why I like podcasting because it ain't a lie. Basically, everything's true.

Speaker 2 Like, you just sit down, start talking, having conversation.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you try to do it.

Speaker 2 Movies is like one day

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And once again, that's an artificial snapshot of a moment that made me feel fucking absolute joy.

Speaker 2 And then you give that moment to the movie, and then the movie goes out to the audience, and then the moment stops being just yours. And then for the rest of your life, you interact with that movie.

Speaker 2 Periodically, it comes up and you're watching it, and you see see this like wonderful, this approximation,

Speaker 2 this half-ass 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.

Speaker 1 When it comes to preparing for a movie, what are some pitfalls that people can avoid?

Speaker 1 It might be little things. It might just be energy, being focused, having enough time.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Like whether you have 3 million or 300, every filmmaker, every producer always has the same complaint, which is like, not enough time, not enough money.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 This is what you need to think about, I think, primarily.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 That way, your take ratio is going to be real low. Now, some people will be like, what does that matter in the age of fucking digital video?

Speaker 2 Back 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,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 All right, that's good enough. Let's move on.
Let's do something else. Good enough has gotten me here.
It's gotten me all the way to this fucking chair.

Speaker 2 Good 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.

Speaker 2 You got to fucking like make people hurt.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 casting 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.

Speaker 2 Number one, I don't have the talent. Number two, I don't have that kind of patience and shit.
Number three, I can't do that to other people.

Speaker 2 I want people leaving my set going, I had a good ass fucking time. That's how I keep my budgets low.

Speaker 2 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 good time on a set. You're going to enjoy yourself.

Speaker 2 You're going to have fucking happy memories and shit like that. Good enough gets me to the set.
You know, if I've rehearsed enough before we shoot and I'm on set, one, two takes tops.

Speaker 2 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.
I honestly never have.

Speaker 2 And I've just been doing it 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.

Speaker 2 I've been doing this for 30 fucking years. Well, you show up.
I don't try. I try.
And beyond show up, I deliver.

Speaker 2 I just don't fucking make everyone's life miserable to fucking deliver something that's like, I've got a vision.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 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 be fun.
It's making pretend for a living.

Speaker 2 And I understand, you know, there are some people like, no, man, art is pain. And it's good, not really.

Speaker 2 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 got to be this.

Speaker 2 And I don't believe in that. So I'm the guy that's just like, that's good enough.

Speaker 2 Let's move it on. Every one of my movies is good enough.
Don't have to be great and shit.

Speaker 2 I saw somebody the other day on Twitter was like, it's got like one or two really brilliant ideas in in this movie and the rest is just some fucking horse shit. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, that's it.

Speaker 2 You don't have to keep watching them 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's fascinating, man.

Speaker 1 Cause yeah, 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 the black, of not being prepared for perfection prevents them sometimes from taking the step.

Speaker 2 So it's just the fear of not being able to achieve perfection. I just accept early on.
I was like, I'm never going to be fucking perfect. And you're never the dictator of this anyway.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You make a thing with one intention, the audience is going to tell you what that fucking thing is, what it means, and shit like that. This is a story I tell an awful lot.

Speaker 2 So if you've heard this in another place, I apologize.

Speaker 2 When I was making the 430 movie, and this ain't to bring it back to that. No, it's relevant to just this conversation.

Speaker 2 I 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 the choca cons i feel for you so they were you know for direction i went over to the vehicle and i was like um kids um

Speaker 2 you know you're just goofing around and dance whatever the fuck do whatever you want uh 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

Speaker 2 that's your fucking direction make it iconic? That's a little fucking pressure, don't you think? And I was like, well, no. I said, oh, then I realized I have the benefit of experience.

Speaker 2 I've been doing this for 30 years.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So these things we do in the moment, like this fairy bit passes and it's just a fucking Kevin Smith movie, but I promise you, this movie is somebody's going to be somebody's fucking life preserver.

Speaker 2 This is going to be their buoy that's going to 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.

Speaker 2 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 Mall Rats on VHS. Very well-worn copy and shit.

Speaker 2 I was like, holy shit, look at this fucking ancient piece of Americana. I mean, how many times you watch this? He goes, a lot.

Speaker 2 I said, who am I signing it 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 get a few minutes to have this exchange.

Speaker 2 Then my man rocks my fucking world. And he goes,

Speaker 2 I'm going to 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.

Speaker 2 I'm sure you've heard that too, where people are like, bro, your show saved my life or blah, blah, blah. Or sometimes I'm driving.
You're the difference between me going crazy and not.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So I've heard that sentiment and I know how to receive it. And 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 bloody mess and I would close the bedroom door and I'd put in mall rats and I would escape to the mall with T.S. and Brody and Jay and Salonbob.
And he's going, and that was my happy place.

Speaker 2 And that's how I survived living with my father through this fucking tape. He He goes, now I have a son.

Speaker 2 And he's gone, and I would never be the piece of shit that my fucking father was to me my whole life.

Speaker 2 And I want to 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.

Speaker 2 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 have helped.

Speaker 2 But, like, when you share of yourself like that, you go off and make, and, you know,

Speaker 2 don't matter what it is.

Speaker 2 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 because you're in and out there's an engagement period 90 minutes to two hours 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 just go out of the way every year to feel good so you create that and you become that for somebody else So the 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.

Speaker 2 Like 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.

Speaker 2 And my movie's pretty fucking profound on some levels and shit. Yes, it has a lot of butt-fucking jokes, but I like to balance it out.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 this is going to save somebody's life? Hold on. Jay,

Speaker 2 get ready to fucking swing me across the fucking mall. You know, you don't think about that.
So when I told the kids, make it iconic, that's what it comes down to.

Speaker 2 Even 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, when I was in the nuthouse, they say all sorts of simplistic shit, which is fucking really helpful. You could put it on a towel and stuff in a kitchen, aphorism or whatever, fuck.

Speaker 2 And what they say, every day is a gift. That's why it's called the present.
And it's kind of true. Like, it's absolutely true.

Speaker 2 Like, so often, we're so fucking bored as a species that we don't think about, like, you're only going to get so many breaths. You're only going to get so many heartbeats and shit like that.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 I'm painfully aware. We're all living on borrowed time.
I'm just fucking well aware of it. Act accordingly.

Speaker 1 Do you think, like, as a creator, do you ever want to invent something? Do you ever also think about inventing something, but you didn't do it?

Speaker 1 Because a lot of times people who are creative think about things like, has there ever been an invention like fucking Flobe or something?

Speaker 1 Right, but anyone that kind of stood out in your head or something? Because I thought like.

Speaker 2 I've been trying to make this movie moose jaws for 10 years. One day I'm going to get it, it's going to happen.
I'm going to find the money for it.

Speaker 2 And eventually I'm going to get to the place where I'm like, you know what? I'll just put up my house.

Speaker 2 I ain't got Theo Vaughn money and shit, but I got a nice house where I could probably live in that Celsius cooler if you all did anything. I will.
I'll sell my house and live there.

Speaker 2 I'm like, honey, get ready.

Speaker 1 Because who, like, yeah, I always say, like, who invented the swimming pool or whatever?

Speaker 1 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, um,

Speaker 1 oh, I used to think there was a dog collar or whatever that if a because 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

Speaker 1 more melodically or whatever, or like a

Speaker 1 musically, you know, so eventually the howling.

Speaker 2 It's not just like, oh, yeah, it's like, oh, there's somebody to howl with because they always harmonize when there's more than one. Right.

Speaker 2 So it's like, if it's a lonely dog, it's almost like having a pocket pal.

Speaker 1 Like Bel Biv, Dog Bo, or Dog Bo or something.

Speaker 1 Like a Tonezo Spaniel or whatever.

Speaker 2 It's a first draft for a name, but I like where you're going. Yeah, okay, good.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But wouldn't it be beautiful if you're laying there and one of them howls you like these motherfuckers, but then they're like, woo, woo, woo, hoo.

Speaker 2 Totally, and they're all fucking singing in unison and shit.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 And then you, and then fucking, they're the next Nirvana. Three neighborhood dogs that just got together and have these harmonies and collars.

Speaker 2 And people are like, he's singing exactly how I fucking feel. I don't know what he's saying, but that's how I feel.
That's a beautiful thing about art.

Speaker 2 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...

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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, stat.

Speaker 2 It'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 in Poco Spanish.

Speaker 2 So I always think of me as a filmmaker as like somebody who took four years of high school Spanish, you know, and got C's to D's and then tries to go to Spain and passes as a local. Oh, I seriously.

Speaker 2 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 Jerry Garcia.

Speaker 2 Oh, fuck. Jerry Garcia, man.
I'd be making that Theo Vaughn money and shit.

Speaker 1 You've gotten a, yeah, but do you ever think of an invention? I just think creative people always wonder if they think of inventions, you know?

Speaker 2 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 doubt that.
I never died. I'm too self-involved.

Speaker 2 My head's up here.

Speaker 1 You created a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2 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. I've never like done something.

Speaker 2 There's like, got to be a better way.

Speaker 1 You've gotten to direct a lot of, you got to direct George Carlin. You've gotten to direct Ben Affleck.

Speaker 1 Anything that stands out to you about talented men like that in general or talented actors in general?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 I like it.

Speaker 2 Let me see.

Speaker 2 Is there such a thing as like, that person's got it? I do believe in that.

Speaker 2 What are the kids called today? Riz?

Speaker 1 Riz, yeah. Aura.

Speaker 2 Aura, that's the new word? Thank you.

Speaker 1 I think anyway, I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 Anytime I get a new word, I dial my clock back a little bit. Aura, kids.

Speaker 2 But let's just go with the Riz, which was like, oh, 10 minutes ago or whatever, fuck.

Speaker 2 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 sure maybe but like number one he's attractive to look at and in movies we like to look at attractive people and stuff uh number two he seems very relaxed and natural so you never like he's acting it almost seems like he's fucking under acting a lot of times he's just not phoning it in but he ain't trying man you don't get the fat, you have a feeling that this thirsty motherfucker is really going for it.

Speaker 2 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 tripping with charisma.

Speaker 2 That's why he's a goddamn movie star. So all of them.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 He passed on rest in power.

Speaker 2 That dude was like

Speaker 2 brilliant. He's the finest actor I've ever met, best actor I ever met in my life.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 a vile fucking speech that he's giving because it's delivered so incredibly well and through the southern patois that he chose and stuff.

Speaker 2 That guy has had it. He's passed now.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 yes, to answer the question, absolutely. I think it's, it's, 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.

Speaker 2 They got the Riz and ready to go, man.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But people find it fascinating where they're like, why is that guy who must be so rich and has it all? Why does he look like that? And you got to know what it is.

Speaker 1 But they know he struggles with addiction, right? They know that that's happening to him. So like, isn't it gross then at that point to, if you know somebody has like, because alcohol is.

Speaker 2 Do I think it's fair? No. But

Speaker 2 like he knew the job was dangerous when he took it. He's in a high-profile public position.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, that comes along with it. You can't just sign up for movie star worldwide global fame and go, yeah, but nobody can take pictures of me when I'm not in a good mood, right?

Speaker 2 Like that's part of the rule. Like if you go out in the world, we live in a world of cameras, that's going to happen.

Speaker 2 But it only keeps happening because they did it once and people clicked on it and found it interesting and they started making memes about it. So then people keep feeding the beast.

Speaker 2 So I, you know, do I think it's fair?

Speaker 2 Well, let's break it, let's break it down like this. I'll break it down like

Speaker 2 a Catholic.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 If the cost is every once in a while, somebody's like, he looks fucking sad when he's drinking dunking donuts. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, at the end of the day, you got to 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?

Speaker 2 Which is a fucking recipe for disaster. Ben is not that guy.
As far as I know, Ben has never had a social media account. He's had a social media account, but somebody else fed into it.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You took your moms to the Oscars. Come on.
There's nothing cuter about that. They're mass hole kids and whatnot.
And, you know, a lot of them.

Speaker 1 And the Patriots won so much.

Speaker 2 And the fervency that goes along with that. But then sometimes.
Not fuck them.

Speaker 1 No, yeah, sorry about it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It just comes along with it. So if you don't want that anymore,

Speaker 2 give up the other thing. Yeah.
But unfortunately,

Speaker 2 it's a byproduct of the job that you've chosen. Like, you know,

Speaker 2 if Ben was a teacher in Cambridge,

Speaker 2 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. Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2 But because he's been afflict, people have this idea that like he should be happier than that. And it's like, come on, man.

Speaker 2 Like people are like, think about, like, I live in a world of three-act structure, and I realize it has really fucked me up for my entire life. Three-act structure is movies.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And they always have an ending that's generally on the happy side, but there's an ending and a conclusion.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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'm being fucking happy.

Speaker 1 I think he's probably just a regular dude. I just think it's possible.

Speaker 1 If, like, that there's websites and shit, if somebody has, you know, suffers from like alcoholism or something, they know that they're,

Speaker 1 you know, that there's something kind of, there's, it's a condition that they would then do that. It just seems egregious to me.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 Neither would I and generally, I don't engage in that sort of thing. Yeah.
But I just want to take a moment to shout you out for this. That's very sweet of you, Theo.
Like that's.

Speaker 2 That's most people going 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.

Speaker 2 That ain't interesting. But with a a train wreck? Oh, fuck.
Let's go, look at the fucking bodies, as George Carlin would say. So it's nice to hear you go, like, I don't like that.

Speaker 2 Like, you got a line where you're like, this guy's got drinking problems, or he's had drinking problems. This might make him drink again.
That's human to think that way.

Speaker 2 Rest of the world don't think that way. Rest of the world looks at that guy and they go, fuck him, he's got it all.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So now, if the fucking Pats are winning, fuck him. I know.

Speaker 2 I know there are levels and shit like that. Are you a sports guy?

Speaker 1 I am a little bit. I got two more questions.
Did you, I know you're, did you?

Speaker 2 I apparently have way more questions.

Speaker 2 Are you a sports guy?

Speaker 1 Did you go to Stan Lee's funeral?

Speaker 2 I did not go to Stan Lee's funeral. Did you think about it?

Speaker 1 I don't know if you guys were even close or anything.

Speaker 2 I just went close. I went to Stan Lee's final birthday party, which was in December, the few months before he passed away.

Speaker 2 Or right before, you know, he was 95 and he almost made it to 96. So it was his 95th birthday party.
I still have pictures on my phone.

Speaker 2 When they buried him,

Speaker 2 I didn't get invited. And 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.
Like, we, like,

Speaker 2 in the last year of his life, nobody was close to him because of the situation. People kept him away from people.
He was kind of, there was an elder abuse situation going on.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that party right there. It was December 28th, 2017.
Happy birthday.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I mean, you couldn't get near him.

Speaker 2 The people who were kind of in charge of him kept everyone away i couldn't text him anymore even call him and like that so i didn't have access uh toward the end it was a sad

Speaker 2 ending for for stan but i realized like toward the end we did a commercial

Speaker 2 an audi commercial when uh age of ultron was coming out and the premise of the commercial was like the stan lee school of cameo acting so he would uh put on like thoris helmet and be like this is acting and then he put on like a random general helmet and he's like this is cameo acting because Stan did a lot of cameos and shit.

Speaker 2 So the whole spot is that. And then he gets an Audi and drives away.
And it's a class. I'm in the class.
Jason Muse is in the class. Michael Rooker's in the class.
I've seen it. Yeah,

Speaker 2 like years and years ago. So we shoot this spot, and I was hanging out with Stan all day.

Speaker 2 And then we're doing the last shot where Carr goes past Lou Ferigno hitchhiking, like at the end of the Incredible Hulk.

Speaker 1 I saw him at the post office once.

Speaker 2 Lou Ferigno? Yeah. Awesome dude.
Nice. Very nice to me.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 Stan's like body manager, his

Speaker 2 business guy, financial guy,

Speaker 2 came to set to 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.

Speaker 2 He always has a good time hanging out with you. And I was like, oh, I always like being around Stan.
It just seemed like a nice thing to say.

Speaker 2 And then the guy, like, fucking, lethal has a heart attack. He goes, you know, he thinks of you like a son.
And I fucking, like, I was like, what? Like,

Speaker 2 really? And then it occurred to me that, like,

Speaker 2 I always always thought he's just being nice to me because we put him in mall rats. Like, he was just being staying political.

Speaker 2 It's just like, hey, everybody, you know, everybody's fucking grandpa and shit. But he legit actually, like, like, liked me as a person.

Speaker 1 And, and, um, yeah, when I see that picture, actually, I thought of that for a second, kind of.

Speaker 2 He taught me a lot. He taught me.

Speaker 1 He tried to give me a father-son vibe.

Speaker 2 He taught me how to be me for a living. He didn't sit me down and be like, this is I be, but this is a dude who, like,

Speaker 2 you know, it was one thing to be creative, right? Like, he co-created most of the Marvel Universe. And

Speaker 2 yes, you know, of course, he worked with great artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby and whatnot.

Speaker 2 But like the imagination that went into it, this was a man who wanted to write the great American novel.

Speaker 2 Like I remember talking to him interviewing at one point, he was like, well, I really wanted to write the great American novel. And I was like, Stan, you did.
Like, you just didn't do it as a book.

Speaker 2 You did it with the Marvel Universe. It's our modern fucking mythology.
But he wasn't aiming for that. It's so true.
It's just something he did for money and backed into.

Speaker 2 And then later on, the culture shifted like into his favor because people like comics. But he was

Speaker 2 like fucking banging the symbols for comics since I was a kid. I remember my father like calling me out one morning.
I was getting ready for school. He goes, get inside.
Spider-Man's dad is on TV.

Speaker 2 And it was on Good Morning America talking to like

Speaker 2 one of the earliest hosts of before even Joan London on Good Morning America about comic books.

Speaker 2 And here was a grown-ass adult man on television talking about something I was passionate about, something that I knew very very well and loved. So I respected the dude right away.

Speaker 2 I knew his voice even before I saw him and even before I heard his voice and like Spider-Man has amazing friends in every episode because he would write that stamp soapbox.

Speaker 2 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 can make a million books and characters and shit.

Speaker 2 If you don't know how to sell yourself or sell your work, Nobody going to hear about it. And that guy, you know, a lot of people are like, he took all the credit himself.
I'm not here to address that.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 One of the only true American art forms is the fucking comic book, the superhero comic book.

Speaker 2 So this was a man who was like out there doing the work, like building the fucking rails upon upon which billion-dollar fucking steamships move now.

Speaker 1 I mean, Deadpool doesn't happen if that doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And he didn't create Deadpool, nor did he create Wolverine, but

Speaker 2 he created the playground in which those two characters were created by other creators in the Marvel universe and comics and stuff. So yeah,

Speaker 2 I miss him, man. 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.

Speaker 2 That's what I was saying like a long time ago. You're the only audience you can guarantee to satisfy.
So if you keep your budget low, real low, and it don't matter. Go for it and stuff.

Speaker 2 But just don't expect the whole world's going to come. Modify your expectations like my wife.

Speaker 1 So the 4.30 movie, it's about

Speaker 2 85 minutes long.

Speaker 1 And it touches on like young love, kind of that first moment.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's dripping with fucking young love.

Speaker 1 God, you remember that? You remember going to your first date movie or not? At that movie theater.

Speaker 2 Oh, absolutely. The whole movie is about that first date with my high high school girlfriend, like Kim Laughran.

Speaker 2 Kim Garby, now she married. But

Speaker 2 the flick is set at the movie theater, Smodcastle Cinemas that I have with my friends in Jersey and Atlantic Islands. You can go to it and go see movies there.
We do events there all the time.

Speaker 2 Smodcastlecinemas.com. Look for events.

Speaker 1 It's in Red Bank?

Speaker 2 In Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. It's not far from Red Bank.
But in that theater, hanging up, like behind the ticket counter, is a note that I wrote to Kim.

Speaker 2 Kim Laughran 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? Love Kim.

Speaker 2 So it's hanging up at the theater because the note was about that theater. And then I grew up and bought that fucking theater with my friends and kept it alive and stuff.

Speaker 2 So the movie is aching with like star-crossed first love.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I remember I to talk about, I'd read a review for Pretty and 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.

Speaker 2 It wasn't the person who reviewed films locally, so it was a wire service review.

Speaker 2 But of Pretty and 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.

Speaker 2 And 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?

Speaker 2 But 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.

Speaker 2 Phones play a big part in the movie, but it's like emergency breakthroughs.

Speaker 2 Like, 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.

Speaker 2 So it's of an era that, like, you know, that I grew up in that kind of shaped me. And most of the movies I've ever made have been about like the 90s, so to speak.
I would love that.

Speaker 2 This movie is more about the 80s. It 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And I always felt that way because I'm like, we can get a cool cast, but it's all predicated on the script.

Speaker 2 This is the first time I read one of my scripts, and I was like, well, I hope the cast is real good because

Speaker 2 there's not a lot going on in the script. I said, but if the cast is charming, this movie will work.
And the cast is. crazy, wonderful, charming.

Speaker 2 And so if the movie works at all, it's because of them, because of Ken Jong, because of Justin Long, because of all the people that are in it. But it's September 13th.

Speaker 2 You could say to theater you, and then digitally, of course, it'll be.

Speaker 1 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. You know, we used to do that all the time.

Speaker 1 Me and my buddy Scott.

Speaker 2 I pray for that. I was always okay with the dick size.
And it wasn't big, but I was like.

Speaker 2 When did you realize you didn't have a big dick?

Speaker 2 Why were you praying for something? For all you knew, you had the big stick.

Speaker 1 Well, I think at like 12 or 13, you started praying, or some people started praying about it like that.

Speaker 2 Did you have a size comparison to look at and be like, my dick's not like that?

Speaker 1 No, but you just knew people wanted to.

Speaker 2 How did you just know, Theo? People said, like, oh, you got a little, people would say, oh, why'd you believe them? You have no proof. Proof's in the pudding.

Speaker 2 If you're not seeing it, you're not being it. So all this time, you've been worried that you got not a big enough dick.
You could have gone home anytime you wanted.

Speaker 2 All you had to do was click your heels together.

Speaker 2 You have, 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.

Speaker 2 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 my god talking yes Arctic blast be very easy to get blown if you taste it like Arctic blast especially if your wiener had like one of those pop things at the end like a pop top if they could just pop it on and also if when they were done they were gonna be like I'm gonna feel energetic because it could burn extra calories like I'm ready for work that would change your wife's behavior in the morning I think truly would I maybe I could get like like 8 a.m., 9 a.m.

Speaker 2 going on.

Speaker 1 God, I'm going to pray about that.

Speaker 2 So, wait, but you said something before.

Speaker 2 Right now, you're not in a relationship? No. When was the last serious relationship?

Speaker 1 Probably like four or five years, you know?

Speaker 2 So I want to be in one. That's why you're successful, son.
Oh, I feel like you're a marriage. You're like, fuck love.
You're like, I'm married to my job. Yeah.
That's what happens.

Speaker 2 So now the job's in a great fucking place. Now you're like, hmm,

Speaker 2 who will I share all this with?

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, I got to find a wife. I got to get some, I got to get a little bit of help first.

Speaker 2 I got to find a wife.

Speaker 1 I got to decide. I got to find a wife.

Speaker 2 You don't need to find a wife. You just need to find somebody.
Yeah. You ain't gotta marry them and shit like that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but 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,

Speaker 2 you just go be Theo.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and just have some kids that are your own to play with and stuff.

Speaker 2 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.
I put up that thing about Beardless Dickless Me on my Instagram,

Speaker 2 and there was somebody who was like, ew, stop forcing your kid down my throat. And it's like, you you don't have to fucking listen.
It's a free podcast. It's not mandatory.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 It's always amazing to me when like people get hostile and shit like that. This one guy was like, this is the weirdest reaction.
He goes, I saw a video where you were crying on YouTube and shit.

Speaker 2 You went crazy. And 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.

Speaker 2 I was like, is any of this true? And I did do a YouTube video, but I wasn't crying in it.

Speaker 2 And I did say I was going to like not fuck with my socials as much, which I didn't for the better part of a year.

Speaker 2 After I got out of the fucking nuthouse 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.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 you know, you've been around so fucking long. You know the game.
Why are you even fucking wasting a second, man? So I just deleted that shit, moved on with my day.

Speaker 2 It's like they taught me in the nuthouse, man. Like, there's

Speaker 2 two places that human beings love to exist.

Speaker 2 And the two least healthy places for a human being to be.

Speaker 2 The past and the future.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.
We're in the past going like, oh, remember I said that shit.

Speaker 2 And why didn't that person say hi that time? And fucking, man, how come that dude's doing it? And I'm not. Why are they ahead of me? And shit like that.

Speaker 2 That's all fucking stuff you can't do anything about. Past happened.
You can't rewrite that. You can't change it.

Speaker 2 Maybe if you're Tony Stark, you can go back and change it.

Speaker 2 Then end game 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.

Speaker 2 Nobody knows what's going to happen. And you can't sit there.

Speaker 2 You know, a lot of people you meet and be like, you should write a story. Like, I ain't creative.
Like you bullshit. Everybody in this audience is way more creative than me.

Speaker 2 As fine a writer than me, if not better, when it comes to imagining a dire future for themselves.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Crazy scenarios about this happens and this and this and this. And we live in them.
They're so fucking real. The body remembers.

Speaker 2 There's a book called The Body Remembers, which is about trauma and how the body stores trauma, scientifically proven. Body remembers trauma.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So when you've got PTSD, that's why people get the shakes or fucking have to be away from people and stuff. That's real.

Speaker 2 Physically, the body remembers fucking trauma and stuff like that. So the best way past all that shit.

Speaker 2 I don't know. I'm still trying to figure that out.
But stay out of the past, goddamn it. And stay out of the future because you you can't do anything about it.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You, it's not true, though. It'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.

Speaker 2 Flip the script and just fucking make up all happy, fucking goofy ass unusual. You'll leave up some good shit for yourself.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So 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.

Speaker 2 It has just as much a chance of happening as the negative bullshit.

Speaker 2 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 anxiety, there's only one place to be.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Everyone's headed to a place and then everyone's obsessing about where we've been. Kids, this is what they taught me in the nut house.

Speaker 2 I'm going to save you a lot of fucking money and time and shit like that. Be here and now.
Be mindful. Breathe.

Speaker 2 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, if you're in the past, worrying about some old fucking shit that happened, what you need to do is just this.

Speaker 2 It's crazy as shit, free as fuck. Breathe.
You go.

Speaker 2 Just 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 My body's reacting to 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.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying this is a cure for everything. Some people go through real shit, but when you're in your head,

Speaker 2 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 recognize the future.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because 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 heart attacks.

Speaker 2 I had fucking packed, you know, LAD LAD full of cholesterol and shit like that. People could put themselves in.
They say stress is the number one killer. It gets you to that heart attack.

Speaker 2 Stress will kill me. And stress is created by sitting around going, like, oh, fucking, what if it don't work out, man? It'll never work out because it never worked out in the past.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 If you can't do that and you got to be in the future, just make up a better future.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 At least be an author for the best for yourself.

Speaker 2 You're going to make it up. Make up good shit.

Speaker 1 Kevin Smith, 430 movie comes out September 13th.

Speaker 2 And my podcast with my kid.

Speaker 1 And the Smodcast Network. Beardless.

Speaker 2 No, it's not. Beardless, Dickless.
iHeart Network. Beardless, Dickless, Me.
I took all my shit behind a paywall years ago, all my podcasts and shit.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So beardless, dickless, me.

Speaker 2 It's funny. I just sit around and try to make her fucking laugh.
I know some people are like, ew, fuck you, and you're a happy kid.

Speaker 1 No, I think it's that's sweet. It is.
It's coming.

Speaker 1 Thank you, man. Thanks for all the entertainment.
Thanks for all the being your trying your best to be yourself through your medium. And

Speaker 1 yeah, so many people have enjoyed so much of your work over the years.

Speaker 2 You're like, I'm not one of them, but I appreciate the fact that it exists.

Speaker 1 We've all enjoyed your work over the years.

Speaker 2 Dude, you're going to be in that next shit on the Salmon Bob movie.

Speaker 1 Like, seriously. Oh, selling the weed.

Speaker 2 I didn't say that. Don't start writing the podcast.
Okay, shit.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I guarantee you, in the comments, kids, in his comments, you'll be like, oh, my God, fucking you and Jay.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.
Yeah. Or your Twang is from South Jersey.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I did that joke in a movie.

Speaker 1 I'll do it again. A lot of times people in Louisiana get, people get accused them from being from New Jersey.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much, Kevin.

Speaker 2 Thank you for having, man. Thank 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.

Speaker 1 Dude, you know what's so funny? It's a blessing. I was kind of tired today, and I'm grateful that you spoke.

Speaker 2 Are you serious? Yeah. Fucking.

Speaker 2 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 and shit. It's just like.

Speaker 2 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%.

Speaker 2 Anytime you don't feel like working, you want me, I'll sit here and talk the whole time and you can fucking sit there and be present in the moment and breathe.

Speaker 1 And sorry, the AC wasn't working. The coldest thing in here.

Speaker 1 It wasn't. The coldest thing in here is that Celsius cooler.
Are you kidding me? We had it open earlier.

Speaker 2 That's the coldest and the coolest thing fucking in here. Actually, you're the coolest thing in here.
Fucking Celsius cooler.

Speaker 1 Second coolest. Well, you're cool too, man.
Thanks, man.

Speaker 2 I did that. I said it just so you would say that back.

Speaker 1 On Kevin Smith.

Speaker 2 Oh, that shit putting on my Instagram. Instagram.
Theo Vaughn said I was cool.

Speaker 1 Thanks, brother. Thanks for watching.

Speaker 2 Now, I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be

Speaker 2 cornerstone.

Speaker 2 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind I found. I can feel it

Speaker 2 in my bones.

Speaker 2 But it's gonna take

Speaker 2 a little bit of time.