My Boring-Ass Life (Revised Edition): The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith (33 page)

At movie’s end, sci-fi dork Schwalbach looked like she’d just had the most thorough and gratifying fucking of her young life. The whole flick, she was literally riding the edge of her seat, gripping the armrest. I was almost jealous, seeing her affected by another director so profoundly.

We kiss, and Schwalbach heads down to Robson to shop, while I head back to the hotel to grab my car. I get a call from Bob Weinstein, who asks what I’m doing after
Clerks 2
, and will I be ready to go into
Ranger Danger
for him and Dimension. I tell him that’s what it’s looking like, and he’s all enthusiastic, insisting we’re gonna knock it out of the park. Chuffed, I grab my car from the valet guys, and head to the stage.

En route, I call Walt to see if he’s seen
War
yet. While I was watching the flick, I thought about Walt a lot, and how much he’d probably love the flick. He tells me he’s going on Monday, and I tell him to brave the crowds and see it this weekend. I tell him the scene in which the TV news lady shows Cruise video footage of the Tripods traversing the landscape is worth the price of admission alone, it’s so fucking creepy and awesome. He tells me he’ll call me after he’s seen it.

I get to the studio, jump into hair and makeup, and chill out in my trailer, watching
Metropolitan
, waiting for Tim and Juliet to finish the scene they’ve been shooting all morning. When that scene’s wrapped, I do some off-camera for a Tim shot we owed from another day, and then block the two scenes I’m doing today: solo stuff of me unpacking a bunch of kitchen accessories, and then making a very messy smoothie with the new blender. We spend a couple hours getting it done, and end on a very high note with a nice bit of visual comedy. I get my hair and makeup removed, then hit the gas station on the way home, calling Gail to ask if she’ll cook me up some more Italian sausages for when I get home.

On the way back I get a call from Phil going over the Harvey discussion he had.
Fletch
aside, we’re also at an impasse with the female lead of
Clerks 2
. We’ve compiled a list of candidates for Harvey, but he wants us to aim higher. I’m all frustrated when I get back to the apartment, and ramble to Jen for an hour, before I realize the only thing that’s gonna pull me out of my funk is the sugar I’ve been denying myself for the past two weeks. So Jen cracks open a bottle of wine, and I head for the Peanut Butter and Jelly, and the two of us indulge in our vices big time, watching more
Tilt
, to which we eventually fall asleep.

Friday 1 July 2005 @ 11:32 p.m.

I wake up to a very dreary, rainy Canada Day morning. I check email while taking a shit, and then lay on the floor in the living room, finally updating the online diary which I’ve fallen behind on. Harley wakes up and I take her next door to Byron and Gail’s for breakfast. An hour later, I’m doing a phoner with a Seattle alternative station to pimp the Vancouver Q&A that’s a week from tomorrow.

Jen gets up and we chit-chat, having some smokes. Today, we’re going to Pony Camp with Harley, Byron and Gail, so we’ve gotta take showers and be on the road by eleven.

The five of us make the forty-five minute trek out to the boonies, almost near the US border. Since the entire
Catch
production has the day off due to Canada Day, Susannah and Jenno are out there with their kids as well. We all chit-chat, then wait while the kids decorate and dress up their ponies.

I do a few laps around the horse farm, picking up hay to hand-feed the horses. Every once in awhile, it’s nice to do an up-close-and-personal with an animal you rarely ever see. I mean, I love my dog Mulder, but peeping the horses is a real treat.

The parents head to the corral to watch their kids ride. First up is Susannah and Jenno’s kids. After half an hour of that, round two includes Tim Olyphant’s kids and Harley. While it’s a kick to see Quinnster trot her pony, Cricket, around the track, the shit gets pretty tired very quickly. Jen and I are in full agreement that Byron and Gail are fucking saints, as they’ve done five days of Pony Camp without bitching, and we couldn’t even make it an hour before whining how boring it is.

As a close to their week, the kids all receive blue ribbons and get an ice cream party. No sooner does Harley swallow her last spoonful of sundae before we hurl her in the car and tear ass out of there.

We get back to the hotel around four, and try to figure out what to do with the remains of the day. Harley goes out to eat with Nan and Pop, and Jen and I sack out in front of the tube, watching more episodes of
Tilt
while playing Rummy. In a poker mood, we call up Byron and Gail to see if they’re up for playing some poker in the room.

B&G come over with Harley, and Jen turns the dining room table into a poker table by tossing a sheet over it. Quinnster draws a birthday card for Jenno and Chris’s daughter Maddy, who’s having a party tomorrow at Jenno’s Vancouver rental, while Byron, Gail, Jen and I play some forty-dollar buy in, $1/$1 No Limit Hold’em. We do this for hours, while Harley colors and dances to the iPod, listening to Gwen Stefani’s ‘Hollaback Girl’ no less than fifteen times in a row. It’s a relaxed, wonderful night full of cards, betting, laughs, chat and booze that ends around midnight (ending an hour or two earlier for Quinnster).

Afterwards, Jen and I hit the sack. She’s making the moves on me, but I’m too tired to fuck or be fucked. We fall asleep to some
Tilt
.

Saturday 2 July 2005 @ 11:32 p.m.

I wake up, shit and check email, and go back to updating the diary. Jen rolls out of bed around ten, and we chit-chat in the living room. Jen asks me if I’ve written about Harley’s birthday in the online diary yet, as well as that wonderful Saturday back in LA when we were really crushing on each other. The reminiscence of that day puts us both in a flirty mood. One thing leads to another, and we retire to the bedroom for a quickie before Jen has to rush off to a mani/pedi appointment. It’s a delicious little fuck session that gets us off to a great start to the day.

Jen heads downstairs for her appointment, and I continue updating the diary. Her final instructions were for me to get in the shower, and get over to Toys ‘R Us to pick up a birthday gift for Maddie Moore, but I get so wrapped up in the diary that, before I know it, Jen’s back from her mani/pedi, and I haven’t really moved. I jump in the shower, collect Quinnster, and head over to Toys ‘R Us, with the mandate that I not buy anything too girly (Jen’s against the Barbie stereotype that all girls want pink and frilly things). Any gift I get has to be non-gender-specific.

Harley and I chit-chat on the short ride to the store, and the moment we get inside Toys ‘R Us, we find the perfect gift. The birthday party’s a pool party type affair, so knowing the Topping-Moores have a pool (at least for their time in Vancouver), we pick up this amazing blow-up Wave Rider with battery-operated motor that actually allows kids to cruise around the pool. I call Jen to see if she’ll give me shit for buying this, but she’s down with the idea. I grab that, Disney Yahtzee (as a backup gift, in case Maddie already has the blow-up Wave Rider), some new puzzles for me and Quinnster, some gift bags to wrap the present, and we’re off.

We get back to the hotel and Jen wraps the gifts. I chit-chat with Byron and Gail and talk them into going down to Blaine, Washington to grab some Marlboro Menthol UltraLights and Coke Zero (neither of which are available in Vancouver). Gail tells me the news story about the abducted girl they found in a Denny’s, and we get into a long, depressing discussion about how alert and vigilant every parent has to be in this age of sexual predators, and how it never used to be like that, and how Harley will never know the simple joy of riding her bike to her friends’ houses to play in their front yard, trick-or-treating alone, or selling shit for school fundraisers door-to-door.

Jen, Harley and I head off to the Moores, and it takes us about twenty-five minutes to get there. Chris and Jenno rented a great house with lots of room, and the party’s just getting started as we get there. Since the kids are immediately headed for the pool, Jen suggests we break out Maddy’s gift sooner, rather than later. When I describe it to C-Moo, he goes wide-eyed and insists we give it to Maddie now, so we can crack it open and see if it lives up to its promise.

After fifteen minutes of minimal assembly, we find that the kiddie Wave Rider does, indeed, live up to its promise. It works like a charm, and all the kids take turns riding it around the pool. C-Moo gets into the act himself and gives it a whirl, though it barely budges when there’s more than eighty pounds on board,
thus negating all urges to get one for myself once I get home.

We do the piñata and cake thing, and while the kids play, Jen, Chris and I chill out by the hot tub, talking about Ben and Jen getting married (who — if anybody — knew it was happening on Wednesday), and the fate of
Fletch Won
.

We chill on the porch talking to Chris and Jenno, and both Schwalbach and I are eyeing their toddler, Charlie (an insanely cute and laugh-y baby), thinking what we later discover is the same thought: wouldn’t it be nice to have another kid, and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it was a boy?

The party wraps up, and Schwalbach and I are the last to leave. We’re not three feet up the driveway when Jen pronounces Chris, Jenno and Co. the coolest family we know. On the ride home, we talk about what it’d be like to have another kid, and Harley chimes in that she’d like a sister, if anything. We toss the notion of going out to eat back-and-forth, before settling on simply going back to the hotel and getting room service instead.

Back at the hotel, Quinnster and I engage in some puzzle-making while Jen relaxes in the bedroom. We finish a
Robots
puzzle in about a half hour and then embark on a 500 piece Mickey Mouse puzzle that proves to be soul-killing. Jen joins us, and the puzzle’s defeating even her for awhile before we finally crack it to the point where we both feel like we’d done enough. I show Harley the ‘Hollaback Girl’ video online, and then we engage in some light Tickle Monster before Jen brings Harley to bed for some pre-sleep
Junie B.
reading, while I check email.

With Harley asleep, Jen and I settle into a game of Rummy while watching Alan Alda’s
The Four Seasons
, an early-days-of-cable fave from my youth. We order some room service when Byron and Gail return from Blaine with our provisions. I crack open a Coke Zero, rock a smoke (we’d just run out that day), and I’m in Heaven. We load Byron and Gail up with some DVDs, make plans to hit the Edgewater Casino at BC Place in the morning, say g’night, and go back to our Rummy game, following up
The Four Seasons
with another Alda flick,
Sweet Liberty
. When that’s over, we head to bed, falling asleep to
Goodfellas
.

Sunday 3 July 2005 @ 11:33 p.m.

I wake up, shit and check email, and bring Harley next door for breakfast with Nan and Pop. Byron’s already dressed and ready to hit the casino, so I jump in the shower and get ready. Harley comes back and I let her wake Jen while I get dressed. The two of them are gonna hit the beach and go bike riding while Byron, Gail and I check out the casino. I kiss my girls g’bye and head out to gamble.

We cab it over, and I immediately head for the poker room and throw my name down on the list. They’re just putting together a $4/$8 limit game at that point, so I get onto that table, rocking a little blackjack while I wait. Gail’s a total slots junkie, but Byron’s curious to try his hand at the poker room, so he puts his name down for the next table.

I’m doing well most of the morning, taking down some big pots and at one point, doubling up my buy-in. But as the game wears on, the ninety percent Asian table takes me down, ‘til I wind up going all-in with six bucks and getting smoked on even that hand. I look over to the other table, where I see Byron sitting behind a huge stack of chips, then head to the blackjack table to see if I can win back the four hundred I lost at poker. I get close, and then wind up losing it all. By the time we leave, I’m five hundred and change down (Byron was up almost two hundred). The three of us get outside and discover it’s five o’clock. We’d been playing for seven hours.

We get back to the hotel and Jen and Harley aren’t back yet. Gail gives me the package that’d just been delivered to her: the first cuts of
Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder
. I put them beside my backpack, figuring I’ll watch them in my trailer between set-ups. I lay down in my room and snack out while watching the documentary on the
Goodfellas
DVD.

Jen and Harley get back from the beach, and Byron and Gail take Quinnster out to dinner, leaving Jen and I with some alone time. We’re so into the
Goodfellas
doc that we put
Goodfellas
back on and watch it from start to finish. I order a chicken sandwich from room service while we immerse ourselves in Scorsese’s brilliance. Goddammit, that flick is genius.

Harley returns and it’s time for bed. I try to lay in bed with her and Jen, while Jen reads a
Junie B.
book to her, but apparently, I’m too distracting — as all Harley wants to do is play Tickle Monster. I get the boot, so I grab the Toronto version of
Evening Harder
and pop it in in the bedroom. Right off the bat, there’s Harley introducing me, so before she falls asleep, I head back to her room and ask Jen if I can show Quinnster her intro. Reluctantly, Jen agrees, and Harley comes to our room to watch. Then, while swinging her Yay-Yay around, she pops one of her loose front teeth out. She’s excited as hell about it, and we drag Nan and Pop next door to see it. It’s her third baby tooth to go, so she knows the Tooth Fairy drill by this point, and insists Jen prep the tooth for the Fairy to pickup tonight, while she’s asleep.

I show Harley, Jen, Byron and Gail the Harley intro from the tape, kiss the Quinnster g’night, then start watching the Toronto Q&A. I’m only intending to watch a few minutes, but I get sucked in, and wind up watching all two hours and eleven minutes of it. It’s a totally fun watch, and I have little to no cut suggestions. It ends just as Jen comes back to the room. After Harley went to sleep, she’d opted to watch some TV out in the living room (she’s seen me do Q&A so many times, the thrill for her is gone at this point), and now she’s ready for bed. We pop in some
Cheers
episodes, chit-chat a bit, and fall asleep.