My Boring-Ass Life (Revised Edition): The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith (7 page)

Jen goes in to get Harley, and we head to Wendy’s for some fries and chicken tenders for Jen and Harley respectively. We figure if the kid’s chowing down when we get home, she won’t notice the momentary absence of Mom and Dad. I get us home perhaps a little speedier than usual, and as we get out of the car, Jay greets us from the upstairs window. Beautiful: a built-in babysitter. I tell him to come downstairs and watch Harley for a few minutes so Jen and I can “talk”.

With Harley safely in Jay’s care, Jen heads upstairs, and I take Louis out for a brief walk (something Byron usually does, but he’s on his way to Mammoth with Gail already). I put Louis outside with Scully and Mulder and head down to the bedroom, to discover the already naked Jennifer sprawled out on the bed. I lock the door, turn on the fuck-music (no, not ‘Moonlighting’, as Affleck’s suggested), and we go at it. Ten minutes in, the door phone rings. We freeze, taking a beat to decide to answer it or not, as it may be the puppy camp people coming to pick
up Louis, and the door phone doesn’t ring in Harley’s room, where Jay currently is. We give in, and Jen answers the phone (the phone’s an intercom system, through which you can talk to people at the front door and buzz them in). Sure enough, it’s the puppy camp folks. She buzzes the guy in, and we briefly debate who should go downstairs. I point out that, while she’s wet, I’m hard, hence the more conspicuous of the two of us. Jen throws on a robe and races upstairs to get Louis. I call down to Mewes on the intercom and ask him to call for Louis downstairs and hand over the leash, the dog food, and the dog herself to the puppy camp pickup guy (so Jen doesn’t have to go all the way downstairs). At this point, Mewes has figured out we’re not “talking” and I hang up on his wink-wink, nudge-nudgey “Ohhhhh, shit!” Jen returns to the room, and we return to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

A half hour later, we head downstairs to retrieve the kid. Amazingly, she’s asleep in her barn bed, and Jay’s lying in the trundle beside her, watching
Scooby Doo
. We turn the TV down and leave Harley to nap for a bit, thank Mewes for the coverage, and head back upstairs. Jen rides her couch, smoking and checking email, and I head into the office to return a call to Jenno re:
Catch
. Jen asks me to send out some thank-you emails to folks who’ve agreed to do the Poetry Event, so I draft some missives to Anjelica Huston, Peter Coyote, Barbara Hershey and Ian McShane.

Harley wakes up and joins us upstairs, and with Jay off to play poker at Commerce, we try to figure out what the three of us should do for dinner. Harley opts for some leftover lasagna while watching
Fat Albert
. I join Jen up in the kitchen and make a low-carb pizza while we talk about the Poetry Event. She’s stressing about it, trying to figure out if we’ve got enough booze and enough people coming to read, where the valet parkers are gonna put seventy to a hundred cars, etc. Tickets were $175.00, so she wants attendees to feel like they’ve gotten their money’s worth. We’ve got two tickets left to sell, and we toy with the idea of putting them up for sale here on the board.

When
Fat Albert
ends, we start putting Harley to bed on our couch. She fucking loves that
Fat Albert
flick — particularly the song. I tell her that Jay and I sang that
Fat Albert
song in a movie once, and Jen suggests I let Harley see it (minus the guns in the scene). I grab
Dogma
from the library and pop it in the DVD player, jumping right to the cut scene. The kid’s amazed (you’ve gotta impress them while you can, because kids grow up so fast these days, it won’t be long before she’s like, “You’re a fucking jackass, Dad...”). When it’s over, Jen reads Harley some books while I collect some DVD options to bring upstairs for Jen and I to choose from. We kiss Harley goodnight, turn on the house alarm, leave Scully and Mulder to keep an eye on her, and head upstairs.

Before we get into any DVD watching, Jen and I play a little Battle Tetris. While I’m whipping Schwalbach’s ass, Harley joins us, claiming she’s unable to sleep and tattling that Mulder’s up on the couch with her. Jen deftly talks the Quinnster into going back to sleep, so back down she goes.

We decide on a movie: out of the pile of twenty, it all comes down to
Silverado
. We both rock our laptops while the movie plays on the big screen. About an hour in, Phil calls to talk about
Catch
. When we’re done, Jen and I opt out of the movie (she’s not into it, and I’ve seen it so many times already) and instead discuss the possibility of heading to Vancouver for three months, and what that means for the family (we travel in a pack) — particularly Harley’s school.

Tired, we head downstairs and cuddle up while watching some TiVo’ed
Simpsons
until we both fall asleep.

Saturday 9 April 2005 @ 12:00 p.m.

With all the black out curtains closed and no school to get Harley to, I get to sleep in ‘til around eight-ish before the dogs realize they’ve been outsmarted. I let ’em out and take a leak.

When I get back to the room, Harley’s up too. She wants breakfast, but doesn’t want to go sit at Jerry’s or The Griddle to eat. We settle on some McDonald’s, and I ask for five minutes to check my email before we go.

Two interesting emails: one from Richard Kelly, letting me know that all systems are go on
Southland Tales
and that I’ll be needed for two days in August. The other email’s from Edgar Wright, the director of
Shaun of the Dead
, who’s in town for a week. I respond to both emails, throw on some clothes, pull a jacket over Harley, and we’re off to grab some take-home chow.

As we drive, we decide that a Carl’s Jr. breakfast might be more appealing. Far less than appealing, however, is the bird shit on my windshield. Harley suggests a carwash, so we’re off to the Shell Drive-Thru wash on La Cienega and Pico. We play scream at the scrubbing brushes as they “attack” the car for five minutes, then head off.

We hit the Carl’s Jr. drive-thru and load up on crap to take home. For Mom, we hit McDonald’s on the way home (she’s a McD’s hash brown whore). Harley and I make a bet whether Mom’s up yet or not (Harley says yes, I say no). It’s ten to ten in the a.m.

We pull up outside the house and the bedroom curtains are still drawn, so I win the bet, and demand the kid give me a hundred bucks, lest I call in the goons to break her thumbs. She ignores me and carries the breakfast she apparently bought up to Jen. We snap on the lights and wake the dead, pushing greasy food and Diet Coke in her face to start her day.

Edgar Wright’s called (I left the home number in his email). He’s stranded at his hotel with nothing but winter clothing. I tell him I’ll come get him and drop him off at the Gap.

As Jen heads out to look for plants, I swing over to Edgar’s hotel, pick him up, and drop him off at the Hollywood and Highland Gap to grab some lighter gear. I head back to the house, take a shower, and retrieve Edgar a half hour later. We go back to the house, I give him the tour, and we retire to the living room bar for some beers and chit-chat about his new movie,
Hot Fuzz
.

I load the dogs into the car and drop Edgar off at his hotel ‘round three/four. After that, it’s over to Quizno’s for me and Jen, and Wendy’s for the accompanying mutts. I get back to the house and Jen and I dig into our Quizno’s and beers. Mewes pops up and says that Paul Walker (through whose production company
Bottoms Up
is being made) can’t break away from wherever he’s currently shooting a movie to do his cameo on
Bottoms
. Mewes wants to know if I’ll do it instead. The (brief) role is Mewes’s home-town friend. I tell him that even though it’s gonna be the biggest acting stretch of my life, I’ll do it. Mewes takes off to play some online poker.

With Harley chilling with her friend Hans, Jen and I are free to grab some buzz-fucking time. We spend about an hour doing the nasty, and emerge from our room to take Harley to Astro Burger for some light dinner.

We take out, rather than eat in (a brief point of contention between me and Jen over that), and head home again. It’s time for Harley to go to bed, on our couch once again. While Jen and Harley read some training books together, I download some classical music to play the kid to sleep with. We kiss Quinnster g’night and head upstairs. Oddly enough, the do-we-stay-or-do-we-go argument from Astro-Burger has followed us home, so we spat about it some more, and I opt to head downstairs to catalogue some mp3s. Jen sends me an email to get over it and come upstairs, so go upstairs I do to make up.

We opt for some
Scanners
while we go through our email. Jen’s still putting together the pieces of the poetry event, and I’m still getting through posts on the board. About fourty-five minutes into
Scanners
, we decide to call it a night, and head back downstairs to some TiVo’ed
Simpsons
and sleep.

Sunday 10 April 2005 @ 12:01 p.m.

With the black out curtains drawn, the mutts are once again fooled into sleeping ‘til 7:30. When they start stalking the bed, I get up and let ’em out, take a leak, and head back down to the bedroom office to plant myself in front of the computer.

Quinnster wakes up, and we opt to hit Jerry’s (famous deli) for breakfast. On the way there, we play ‘Sloop John B’ over and over.

Post-Jerry’s, we pick up an iced latte and a Quizno’s veggie & cheese sub for Jen. The subject turns to tattoos and the ‘Harley’s’ tattoo I’ve long promised I was gonna get for my right forearm to compliment the ‘Jenny’s’ tattoo on my left forearm. I try to explain the process of getting a tattoo to Harley, and decide that showing her would probably be better. So we cruise Sunset, peeping out tattoo parlors — none of which are open before noon. Thwarted, we head back to the house, taking bets as to whether Jen’s awake or not.

We get home at ten to noon and Jen is, indeed, awake. She’s been shifting plants around the deck and library balcony for the last hour. I make with the sub and iced latte, and for a few minutes, I’m a true hero.

I take a shower, and decide that perhaps today is the day to get my daughter’s name inked on my body. So I google Sunset Strip Tattoo, give ’em a shout to see if I need an appointment (I don’t) and inform the ladies that I’m gonna get inked and read
Catch & Release
while I’m there. Jen says she’ll bring Harley by in a half hour to check out the process.

At the tattoo parlor, I show the guy my ‘Jenny’s’ tattoo and he looks for the exact font in his books. He preps ‘Harley’s’, gets it to the right size, and we’re in business. It’s been four years since I last felt that needle, but it’s a very singular sensation that’s not too tough to take, yet not that comfortable to either.

Jen and Harley drop in about halfway through, and Harley’s transfixed. The whole affair has a naughtiness factor (what with the naked ladies and devils on the walls, and the needle jamming in and out of Dad’s arm) that appeals to the kid’s wild side. I tell her she can come back in twelve years, and Jen takes her out to look for more plants.

Twenty minutes later, Mewes rolls in. He was next door picking up a modem for his cell phone and he saw my truck. He asks me to get ‘Mewesy’s’ right beneath ‘Harley’s’, but I tell him he’ll have to settle for a Jay and Bob tattoo I’m thinking of getting on my calf.

The guy finishes up an excellent job, bandages my arm, and sends me on my way. As I’m leaving, I spy Mewes still in the Sprint Store. I pop in to see him (and his friend Molly), and then we sit outside the store, chit-chatting for a bit. Turns
out I might have to head over to their set tonight to be in the closing shot of the flick. I tell him to let me know, and head home.

When I get there, Jen and Harley are chowing down on some Baja Fresh. I’ve gotta pick up some lotion for the tat, so I take Harley for a ride to Rite Aid and Wendy’s (for some protein for me).

We get home and opt for a family game. So it’s Disney Yahtzee in Quinnster’s room. She wins (fuck...) and Jen gives her a bath while I go back to
Catch & Release
— a script I really wind up digging (it’s about getting over grief, so it’s appealing to the guy who made
Jersey Girl
on a couple different levels).

We put the Quinnster down for bed and rock the classical music. She wants to see my tattoo, but it’s too early to take the bandage off, so she’s gotta wait ‘til morning. We kiss her g’night and head upstairs.

Jen’s tearing apart the living room, trying to figure out where to stick the 100 people coming for the Poetry Event. The room fits more than that (party style), but this is a seated affair, so it’s gonna take a well-organized layout. Mewes calls, and I am gonna be needed for the shot tonight. I call Phil to let him know I’m going, and he calls the producer to get some deal points straight before I head over.

I don’t have to be there until 11:00 p.m., so I head back downstairs, draw the curtains on the boudoir portion of the master bedroom suite (so as not to wake Harley on our couch), and finish up
Catch & Release
, which turns out to be the kinda flick I’d see theatrically. The Sam part is pretty huge, though, so I’m a little nervous about jumping aboard, as I’m gonna be completely out of my depth.

I throw on some clothes (jeans, dress shirt, tie, and cold weather jacket) for the exterior night scene that’s supposed to be set in Minnesota but is really being shot down near Westwood. I kiss Jen goodbye/goodnight and head off.

Thanks to a cell assist from Mewes, I find base camp and get shown to a trailer. The costume lady signs off on my outfit and I get put through ‘the works’ (makeup and hair). In the trailer, I meet David Keith, and remind him that this is our second movie together, though apart (we were both in
Daredevil
as well). Done with the vanities, I get shuttled off to set, where I meet the director. He walks me through what I’m doing (getting out of a limo at a première of sorts), meet my co-stars in the shot, and we’re off and running. Two takes later, I’m done. Mewes’s buddy Milo and his lady Christina drive me and Mewes back to base camp. We chit-chat for a bit, and then I head home.