CHAOS IN PRINT

MIDNIGHT RAMBLINGS

MOVIE REVIEWS

PHOTO GALLERY

POLLS

MESSAGE FORUM

GUESTBOOK

OLD STUFF

LINKS

CONTACT ME




Chaos In A Box
MY Evening with Kevin Smith
Chaos In Print
Week of February 20, 2006

AUTHOR’S NOTE: My best friend is adamant that I should post this disclaimer, so here I go. It should be noted that, when I quote Kevin Smith, they are not his exact quotes. I wrote this a week after the fact, so they are his quotes as best I remember them. They’re not his exact words, but they capture the essence.

Way back in May of last year, it was announced that Kevin Smith was coming to Edmonton. As with every other concert in my life, I shrugged off all hope of ever going, as I was unemployed and could not afford tickets. But then fate, in the form of my parents, intervened. They gave me two tickets as a birthday present in July. I was going to see Kevin Smith!

I’ve been a fan of Kevin Smith ever since I first saw Mallrats back in university. By following Smith on the Internet, I’ve became quite well-acquainted with his near-legendary Q&A sessions. No holds barred, ask him any question, and he will answer! His sessions became so legendary that it led to a concert DVD, An Evening with Kevin Smith, which came out in 2003. I thought I’d never be able to see one of his shows for myself. And yet, on the evening of February 6, 2006, there I was, at Edmonton’s Winspear Centre, waiting for Smith to take the stage.

Before I could start booing and yelling at him to get off the stage, he said those magic words. “Now please, give a big round of applause for Kevin Smith!” 8 pm rolled around. It was time for the show to start. But instead of Kevin Smith, out came another familiar face. Andrew Wilcox. I went to NAIT with that guy! He was in the semester ahead of me. He took me under his wing and promised to teach me everything he knew. Now, he works for Edmonton’s Sonic 102.9, the radio station which just happened to be sponsoring the Kevin Smith concert. I went to school with him, he mentored me, and now, every time I beg him for a job, he just looks at me with a befuddled look and says, “Do I know you?” Before I could start booing and yelling at him to get off the stage, he said those magic words. “Now please, give a big round of applause for Kevin Smith!”

And then, there he was. The man. The legend. Silent Bob. Up on stage. He looks very much like he does in every picture you’ve ever seen of him. Plain, basic jeans. A View Askew baseball jersey (which you can buy at his website). And, the Silent Bob coat. It was him. There he was. Wow.

Silent Bob Goes to West Edmonton Mall

He didn’t take any questions right off the bat. First, it was time for him to give his impressions of the City of Champions. He opened with the requisite joke about how far Edmonton International Airport is from Edmonton. “I got off the plane, I looked around, and thought, ‘This is Edmonton?’” Big laugh. He talked about his drive up to the city, and how it really is impressive to drive up to it. But, like a lot of tourists to Edmonton, he just had to check out West Edmonton Mall.

“Its name is very Canadian,” said Smith. “The biggest mall in the USA is called ‘The Mall of America.’ That’s a big name, an impressive name. But the biggest mall in the world? Just ‘West Edmonton Mall.’ It needs to be bigger, more impressive, something to portray its size. Like, ‘The Big Fucking Mall.’ ‘Where you going today?’ ‘I’m going to the BFM.’ Now that’s a name for the mall.”

“And then,” Smith said, “I came to a hockey rink. Complete with scoreboard. And I thought to myself, ‘I’m home.’ He lamented that the Mall really doesn’t have a main entrance. (“A mall like that has to have a grand entrance with elephants balancing on balls.”) He also went on about how the only thing about the mall that really impresses is its size. (“It just goes on and on. It’s like a man who’s not good in bed, but has a lot of staying power. When he gets on top and starts pumping, after 2 minutes, the woman goes, ‘This is it?’ but after an hour, she’s, ‘He just keeps going! This is amazing!’”) “And then,” Smith said, “I came to a hockey rink. Complete with scoreboard. And I thought to myself, ‘I’m home.’ (Big laugh) I could move here. Become this city’s adopted son. And then, get traded to LA.”

He was a little disappointed that the World Waterpark is currently closed so the wave pool can get a complete overhaul. “I really wanted to see that wave pool,” he said. “Cuz you know, the fun of a wave pool is sitting back and watching to see if any kids get sucked into the machinery. ‘Oh, that kid’s getting close! Oh, darn, he got away.’” And then, he pointed out the disgusting thought about the wave pool. “And then, I realized that the floor hasn’t been done, or the water changed, in 20 years. 20 years. You just know that pool was filled with barrels of urine…and gallons of cum.” Big groan of disgust from the audience. “Oh, come on. You know people have fucked in that wave pool. They probably did it just so they can look at their friends and go, ‘Dude. I fucked in the wave pool.’ ‘Aw, that’s gross! There’s kids in there!’ ‘Yeah, and now a couple hundred of mine.’”

“And then, I saw a sea lion walk by,” said Smith. “I was like, ‘Dude! Where’s the sea lion store? I got to get me one of those!” For those who don’t know, the dolphin show at West Edmonton Mall was replaced with a sea lion show about a year ago. Smith was describing all the sea lion show’s “movie casting call” theme. “When the person playing a director came out, I felt like charging the stage and going, ‘That’s not how you direct a film!’” And then, he had to throw in the requisite dick joke. “I would have preferred to see the sea lions fuck. Now that’d be a show. Where are their dicks, anyway?”

It turns out that, after the show, if you paid the extra money, you can get your picture taken with the sea lions. Smith stuck around for it. What they have you do is stand really close to the tank, and then, the sea lion jumps out of the water, gets his head really close to yours, and just stares at you. This led to a long, meandering tale of how Smith got his dogs. (“I have two golden labs. And, as a testament to what a nerd I really am, they’re named Mulder and Scully.”) Long story short, one of his dogs, just like the sea lion, likes to get his head really close to yours and just stare at you. When Smith saw this, he took out his cellphone and called his wife, all excited. “They’ve got a sea lion here that acts just like our dog!” he said. According to him, his wife responded with, “You know, I used to worry about you cheating on me when you head out on the road like this. But then, when you call home with news like that, I know I have nothing to worry about.”

“And then, I remembered the last time I made a movie about a mall. Didn’t turn out so well.” He finished by telling us that when he got back to his hotel room, he went online and started reading everything he could about West Edmonton Mall. “I’m just one of those kinds of people,” he said. “When I get fascinated by something, I just need to learn everything about it.” And, in his studies about the Mall, he read about how it seems to have separated Edmonton…drained all the life out of downtown. “Edmonton is a town divided…divided by a mall,” he said. “I think that there’s probably a movie in that.” A hush fell across the crowd, as they waited for the requisite Mallrats joke. “And then, I remembered the last time I made a movie about a mall. Didn’t turn out so well.”

And that ended the first half hour. Smith was now ready to take questions from the audience. Sadly, though, he had to lay down some ground rules. He mentioned that usually, he likes to go all night with stuff like this. But, because of the union rules or the rules of the Winspear or something like that, he had to be finished by midnight, and have a 20-minute intermission. “This is the first time I’ve ever done one of these and felt pressed for time,” he said. “So let’s get to it.”

Philosophy off the Bat

Now, Smith likes to put a little pressure on the person asking the first question. “You’ll be setting the tone for the whole night, so make it good!” he repeated several times. A young woman asked a deeply philosophical question of Smith.

“Now that you’ve achieved your dreams, what do you dream about?”

Smith was quite visibly taken aback. “Whoa,” he remarked. “As I said, I usually go all night with these shows. Questions like that usually don’t pop up until the start of hour seven.” That led to a bit of a philosophical meandering on dreams. He commented on how, when he was a kid, he dreamed of getting the Mego Batcave for Christmas, but he didn’t get it. Instead, he got a similar, cardboard cut-out kind of Batcave. This led him to surmise that our dreams are satisfied in some form or another.

A chain of Jay and Silent Bob-themed sandwich shops. Just so I can serve a grilled chicken sandwich and call it ‘the Cock Smoker.’ And, of course, he had to make it dirty. “I also dream about having a bigger dick.” Then, there were his stock jokes about his small penis, and how, when you’re watching porn with friends, you can never comment on the porn star’s dick size. Because, if you turn to your friend and say, “Dude, he’s got a big dick,” you can’t help but fear your friend will turn to you and say, “No, it’s not. You think that’s big?” and then your friend will whip out his even more-massive dick.

Smith revisited the topic shortly after the intermission. “That question’s really bugging me,” he said. “I’ve also dreamed of opening my own deli. I worked in a lot of sandwich shops, and became really good at making sandwiches. So yeah. A chain of Jay and Silent Bob-themed sandwich shops. Just so I can serve a grilled chicken sandwich and call it ‘the Cock Smoker.’”

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next >>

Comment on this Column
Return to the Columns Page


© Mark Sladen Cappis, 2006

Check out these sections of the archive!

The As Of Yet Untitled Current Chapter of My Life - August 2003 – present

Scarecrow Goes to Japan - August 2002 – March 2003

Life Changes - January 2002 – June 2002

The Vancouver Series - October 2001 – December 2001

Bag Boy Blues - April 2000 – September 2001

Unemployed Bliss - July 1999 – March 2000

The College Years - 1996 – 1999

The Forum - Once you're done reading up on my life, head off to the message board to sound off on how cool or how pathetic I am!