The Return of Jay and Silent Bob

The next question was one that was sure to come up. “You said that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back would be the last one. Why another Jay and Silent Bob film?”

Smith first countered by saying that, technically, Clerks II is not a Jay and Silent Bob film. He again re-iterated something he’s said on his website many times before: Jay and Silent Bob are in Clerks II for about the same amount of screen time they were in Clerks, maybe less.

“One of the popular rumours going around is that I promised [Jason Mewes] I’d do another Jay and Silent Bob film if he sobered up. That’s not true, but I’ll take credit for it. I’m actually quite proud to say that Jay has been clean and sober for three years this month.” That got a big round of applause from the audience, which drew jeers from Smith. “Oh, don’t bother, he’s not here to hear it.”

Turns out that Jason Mewes actually lives with Kevin Smith and his family now. That led to the tale of what Mewes was like when he first got out of rehab. Mewes new drug of choice is Red Bull. “Forget this ‘gives you wings’ thing. Red Bull’s ad campaign should be, ‘Perfect for people getting over heroin!’ That’s gotta be why he drinks it. I think it tastes like goat piss. And don’t ask how I know what goat piss tastes like.” And from there, it turned to tales of how Mewes spent his time after rehab: in clubs. In his first 30 days of sobriety, Mewes had sex with 28 different women. According to Smith, Mewes said, “I don’t know if I’m actually having more sex, or if I just remember it now.” It turned out that #28 was Nicole Ritchie, and they did it in the bathroom of a club. Smith had to ask with awe, “Uhh, where did you cum?” Says Mewes, “Well, I just kind of pushed her aside, pointed it down, and shot into the toilet.” Needless to say, Smith was impressed.

After that little diversion, he continued with “why make Clerks II.” He again stated what he said on the website…that, when putting together the massive Clerks X special edition DVD, he just fell in love with the characters again and wanted to revisit them. He bounced the idea off his long-time producer Scott Mosier, presenting all the, “but I said I’d never do them again. Am I being a hypocrite?” arguments. Mosier’s response, “Dude, these are your creations. You have the right to change your mind. Go for it.”

Another big factor was Canada’s own Degrassi: The Next Generation. As Smith has said in many other interviews, he’s a big fan of Degrassi Junior High. When he first heard about Degrassi: The Next Generation, his first reaction was, “Oh, god, that’s gonna suck! You can’t just put a hat on a person and make him cool anymore! You can’t have Spike 2.0!” Needless to say, he thought it was a bad idea.

Eventually, thanks to the message boards on his website, he found out that Degrassi: The Next Generation was being carried on an American cable channel called Noggin. He explained Noggin, about how it’s mainly an educational channel and they show a lot of cartoons and he watched it with his daughter. “But then,” he said, “Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, Noggin becomes ‘The N,’ and it gets all sexy and targeted to tweens.” Turns out that Degrassi: The Next Generation is the lynchpin of the N’s line-up. So, he set his TiVo to record it.

Aside: “I’m not sure I like TiVo. Think about it. A VCR that can program itself. That’s just 2 steps from Skynet. It won’t be long before we’re being chased by killer robots with machine guns. ‘How do you like your self-programming VCRs now?’”

He wound up recording the whole first two seasons of Degrassi: The Next Generation before he got a chance to sit down and watch it. And then, he was surprised. He found it to be actually good. “Just as good, if not better, than the original,” he said. “And the best improvement is all the girls are hot now! So you’re not sitting there waiting for the one hot girl to come on camera so you can start jacking off. You know, you’re not going (he proceeds to pretend he’s masturbating) ‘Damn it! Where’s Caitlin?’” All kidding aside, he said he was really impressed by it, and also liked how they managed to work in characters from the original. So, he walked away from Degrassi: The Next Generation thinking, “If they could do a follow-up, and have it be as good as the original, why can’t I?”

And that led to the making of Clerks II. He then went into the filming of the movie a bit. Since the whole thing takes place in a day at a fast food restaurant, he wanted to film it all at a real fast food restaurant…just find one that had recently been abandoned, and convert it into a Mooby’s. He says it was cheaper than building a Mooby’s from scratch. When they finally found an empty fast food restaurant, Smith looked around at the neighbourhood they were in and spotted a Days Inn Motel across the street. As he explained, normally, on a movie set, everyone has a trailer. But he looked at the Days Inn, turned to his assistant and said, “Hey, instead of bringing trailers down here, would it be cheaper if we just a bunch of rooms at the Days Inn?” His money-person crunched the numbers and said, “It would be about the same…maybe a little cheaper.”

So, instead of everyone having a trailer on the set, everyone had a room at the Days Inn. Smith also thought, “Well, since I’d have about a 2-hour commute to and from the set every day, maybe I’ll just stay here at the motel and go home on weekends.” Jason Mewes really liked that idea, too, so Mewes did it as well.

But, Mewes really embraced the concept. Mewes lived in his motel room for the whole duration of filming. He even showed up a week early so he could move in. Said Smith, “Mewes has now stayed in some of the finest hotels in the world. But the only one he ever got excited about was this seedy little Days Inn.” And it wasn’t long before everyone started following Mewes example, and everyone was just crashing at the motel rather than coming home at night. And Mewes was in charge. “It was almost like being on a cruise, and Mewes was Julie our cruise director,” said Smith. It were as though the cast and crew of Clerks II eventually had their own filmmaking commune.  “Our own studio back-lot,” Smith called it. And Mewes was genuinely disappointed when filming was done and they had to leave. “Can’t we do it like the Matrix?” Mewes protested. “You know, do two sequels back-to-back and just stay here longer?”

By the time all this was done, Smith took a deep breath, took a look at the person and said, “And that’s why I made another Jay and Silent Bob.”

Love is in the Air

The next question posed: “Do you have any dating advice?”

Smith said that no, he didn’t have any advice, as he’d only ever really loved one woman, his wife. And that led to a story I hadn’t heard before. I’d heard many times before the tale of how Smith met his wife and their first date and their first kiss. I was expecting to hear that story again. But no. This time, Smith told the tale of his second date with his wife, and how that led to them eventually getting married.

Smith knew that his wife was the woman he wanted to marry on their second date. That led to the second time they had sex and, as Smith said, “She let me go anal. I kept trying to go for the front, but she just kept backing up, so I said, ‘OK, if you want to….’” And then, as they were lying there in the afterglow, he kind of half-assed proposed to her. And she was into it! They were in Philadelphia at the time, as this was when Smith was filming Dogma, and they were all ready to elope right then and there in Philly. But, turns out Philly really isn’t a place that’s receptive to quickie marriages, so they couldn’t.

Said Smith, “That’s a story I can never tell my daughter when she asks how I proposed to her mother. ‘Well, sweetie, I broke Mommy, and I knew it was meant to be!’”

That led to a few months later, when Smith was editing Dogma. He was in New Jersey, and his wife-to-be was still in LA. He got a call from his wife-to-be saying that she was going to move in with one of her friends in New York. Smith, of course, was elated. “We can hang out and be like a real couple!” A few days later, Smith got another call. Something happened, and his wife-to-be couldn’t move in with her friend in New York.

As Smith said, “Right there, I knew, that this was one of the moments that could change my life. So, I cautiously said, ‘Well…you can move in with me.’” And his wife-to-be said yes.

So there’s Smith, all wrapped up in editing Dogma, and he just lost track of time. He looked up at the clock and said, “Aww, shit, I gotta go pick her up at the airport!” He was late picking her up. He didn’t even bring flowers (“Something she still gives me shit about,” said Smith). And then, he dumped her off at his place, didn’t even offer to help her get her settled, and took off to go back to editing Dogma. As Smith said, “My ex-girlfriend’s clothes were still hanging in the closet. I never even said, ‘Move on out, I’ve got the next one coming in!’’ Needless to say, it was not a good beginning.

A few weeks later, and things are getting tense. Smith is still all wrapped up in editing Dogma, while the love of his life is all alone in a new town. That eventually led to a gigantic argument between the two. His love was all, “I gave up my life for you and this is how you treat me!” Smith was all, “I never asked you to do that!” And, before they knew it, they were on the verge of braking up. So, they had break-up sex. And, according to sex, break-up sex is the best sex in the world.

A few weeks later, apparently, they didn’t break up, and they were still living together. As Smith described the scenario, he came in, and she was sitting there with a…mixed expression on her face. It was the morning, so he poured himself a bowl of cereal. And sadly, he left the milk out.

Finally, his future wife shared her news. “I’m pregnant.”

To which Smith replied, “Could you put the milk away?” Smith elaborated. “And that’s another thing she still gives me shit about to this day. Here she was, carrying my first child, and what’s my reaction? ‘Could you put the milk away?’ I couldn’t even try to disguise it as new hip-hop slang for surprised. ‘Yo, put that milk away!’”

With that news dropped, they knew it was time to quit talking about it and finally get married. Smith took the day off, and they went to Tiffany’s to choose an engagement ring. As Smith said, they had it narrowed down to two: a small diamond, and a big diamond. He decided to test his new fiancé. “Which one do you want?” he asked. She decided to test him back. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. You choose,” she said. He chose the big one, to which the clerk replied, “Excellent choice.” His wife went over to the food court, while he stayed behind to make the purchase.

Smith says he damn near screamed when he saw the cost of the ring. “Let me put it like this,” he said. “I could have made Clerks several times over, and still had enough left over for a Dodge Neon.” But he bought it anyways.

Smith ended, “And that’s another story I can never tell my daughter when she asks how I proposed to her mother. ‘Well, we were about to break up, but then you came along!’”

And then Smith looked at the person asking the question and said, “And that’s the dating advice I have for you!”