First off, I’m walking towards the Film Center at a quarter to 9, some fifteen minutes before the listed start time, only to hear a staff member on his walkie-talkie saying, “Kevin Smith is not here yet for the 9 o’clock event.” I laughed knowing Kevin is in full swing of production no doubt holding him back from his date with Michael Agger; little did I know. So, I take my time before entering the center but once I arrive the small size of the venue surprised me. As a frequent fan of the site I’m accustomed to hearing about Kevin’s talks to large convention centers and college campuses. This was a screening room seating roughly fifty people at most. A screening room Kevin is quite familiar with as we’d later find out.

A quater after nine, Kevin rolls in flanked by staff and Michael Agger. Kevin steps up onto a stage with two directors chairs and a table with water wearing a black “Brooklyn” jersey , he says, “I’m sorry I’m late but just before I left the wife said, ‘wanna get laid?” The crowd laughed uncomfortably, obviously not familiar with Mr. Smith’s self-depricating humor. Michael Agger’s jaw dropped and he began to fidget uncomfortably with his list of questions. Kevin continued, “So, when you see her walk in later like she wasn’t laid properly, that’s me.” Of course this is all paraphrasing but you get the gist. Already, Kevin has set the stage for a completely honest and heartfelt evening of discourse. Later his wife did walk in and Kevin looked to audience and pointed to his frowning face then his wife and he smiled. The audience snickered.

Frist off, Michael Agger is a tool. I don’t know where they dug up this guy but he seems to have been reading the New Yorker too much. He acted a little too high brow for the affair and had only what struck me as a pedestrian knowledge of the View Askew-niverse. He was like a pre-pubescent James Lipton without the notecards. Everytime Kevin would make a dick or fart or ass fuck joke, Agger would chuckle uncomfortably and follow up with a, “…Anyway…” The only person that seemed to have a problem with Kevin’s frank rancor was Agger. If Kev did give a staightaway answer Agger would leave a long uncomfortable silence all the while staring at Kevin for something more, perhaps a clue. It seemed less like a conversation and more like an interogation. The line of questioning was biographical beginning with Kevin’s college career and his several attempts at several different colleges. He told this great story about his dorm in Union Square on the 8th floor where he and his five other rooomates would throw water ballons at the neighboring NYU students. Finally the cops show up and rather than run Kevin thought it would be better to stay and pretend to study thinking the person sticking around would seem less guilty. Until the cops saw the balloons and Kevin took the fall for the entire floor. Then towards the end of the semester the roommates decided they were going to toss some more balloons for old times sake knowing that Kevin would immediately be pegged. So, he moved out and quit that college.

Then Michael Agger abruptly brought up Clerks and threw to a clip, which made Kevin cringe. In what seemed like an eternity before the lights dimmed and the projector fired up Kevin went for some water before returning to his seat to squirm. At least they picked a good clip (as if there’s a bad one) where Dante and Randall discuss the independent contractors on the Death Star. Lights up, Kevin the remeniceds about the screening room where he once previewed the movie for Harvey Weinstein of Miramax which is apparently run out of the third floor of the building. Kevin said Harvey didn’t last five minutes before he walked out. Later, after Sundance, Kevin said Harvey finally sat down to watch the movie again only wanting to walk out at the same point, just before the anti-smoking scene because Harvey is a chimney when it comes to smoke, until someone said, ‘just watch this and think 37.’ Kevin said, “37 is a point where a lot of people thought Clerks really takes off.” And the rest is history.

Agger did ask whether Lucas had said anything about the movie and Kevin said, “no, we kept mentioning the films thinking we’d get a response.” “Finally,” he said, “Affleck calls me from Spielberg’s house during Thanksgiving dinner.” Kevin says, “No way, what’s it like?” Ben says, “I’ll tell you later, but guess who’s here?” Kev says, “I dunno.” Affleck says, “Lucas.” “No fuckin’ way,” Kev says, “what did he say about Clerks?” Affleck says, “I say to him during dinner, ‘Mr. Lucas, have you heard of a little movie called Clerks?” And Affleck says, “he turned to me stonefaced and said, ‘that space contractors was pretty funny.” Kevin burst out in a mock moment of joy. It was obvious him getting through to ‘the man’ meant a lot to him. Then Affleck said he saw Lucas and Spielberg for the big geeks they really are after dinner as they showed each other their websites only to start surfing porn sites later. “And not the hardcore horse cock chugging sites, or the ass fucking sites,” Kev says, “no, they were looking at girls in lingerie like you’d see out of Victoria’s Secrets, giggling like little school girls.” It was funny to hear the lighter side of the two mythical movie makers.

Then Mallrats, which was skipped over pretty quickly, all the while Kevin urged for no more clips to be shown. And rightfully so, I mean, who would go to see Kev talk without seeing the movies. At one point he polled the audience for anyone who hasn’t and he said to them, “Go rent ‘em.” Chasing Amy was up next and again, Kevin reminisced about screening the movie in the very same screening room where we were. This time it was a focus group screening and Kevin said, there was one guy there who stood up and said, ‘I like Jason Lee’s character in Mallrats because I identify with him and I like him in this movie too until the end where he turns out to be gay. What’s that say about me?’ Meanwhile, Kevin and Scott Mosier are sitting in the back of the screening room listening in on the focus group so Kevin says, “It means your gay.” It was hilarious.

After Chasing Amy, Agger moved onto Dogma where somebody asked Kevin about the protest story which, any View Askew fan would know Kevin talked about on Leno but Kevin had no problem retelling the tale. I flinched at first about the thought of hearing it again but he gave it so much more flavor than on the Tonight Show. Adding that the reporter really hounded him about whether he was who he said he was. And the fact that he tried to rally the protesters to protest his movie the following day at the same theater but to no avail.

Agger followed that up with Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back, which he called, “a 20 million dollar inside joke.” Kevin laughed and agreed saying that he couldn’t believe he got that movie made. He also said he was writing both scripts, Jersey Girl and JSBSB, simultaneously and that he laid out both in front of Mosier and asked him which one they should make. Mosier chose JSBSB and rationalized by saying, ‘Jersey Girl is a more grown-up film, let’s put that one off for another day.’ Kevin also mentioned that he was trying to put together a little scene from Jersey Girl to screen at the Q&A but it was difficult to show spoiler-free material and then once he did find some it was too late to cut together. Bummer.

So, then it was time for Q&A which Kevin seemed to look forward to because Agger was floundering in his role as host. This is were the audience really showed their mettle, meaning the mix was heavily in favor of the casual fan. And wouldn’t you know it, some tool asked, “what’s a nubian?” You could tell he was hesitant to ask such a lame ass question because he prefaced it with, “I’m sure you get this a lot.” Kevin took in in stride, smiling like he had just lost a bet, saying, “I thought I wasn’t going to get this here at the New Yorker.” Then he wrestled with whether or not he should answer it because the tool wasn’t convincing enough in his sarcasm. Poor Kevin, he shouldn’t be punished for writing such a good joke.

Unfortunately, with such a small fanboy showing there weren’t many questions that haven’t been asked and reported on newsaskew already. When the subject of Jason Mewes came up Kevin seemed really mad at the fact Jay couldn’t get his shit together. Kevin seemed like he was exhausted from fighting an uphill battle without Jay on his side and now he was just frustrated and angry almost conceding defeat. I can’t blame him, it must be tough to lose a friend like that. But all is not lost yet, I think Kevin is still fighting for him because when the issue of the Clerks: The Animated Movie came up Kevin said it might happen but Jay getting his act together may factor into it being made. Also, Fletch Won is still up in the air until Miramax approves the casting of Jason Lee, if not Kev walks. Kevin also says he’s hoping that if he reels in this “Ben and Jen” movie (Jersey Girl) that they may throw him a bone and let him make Fletch the way he wants.

Then the questions kind of tapered off and I threw up a lame softball question to keep ‘em going in fear of the night ending. Sorry guys. So, I asked him what movies he was looking forward to seeing. He surprised me by saying, “Punch Drunk Love,” right off the bat. It turns out he’s anti-Magnolia and not anti-PTA as I originally thought. Then he went on to say, “Daredevil, but that doesn’t come out until February.” He continued saying, “anything with Affleck, I’m a big fan…you want to remake Jaws cast him as the shark. I’ll go see it.”

He went on to answer a few more questions saying he’d never shoot on DV even if he were to shoot Clerks today he’d prefer 16mm. He also said he’d pefer to grass-roots market ‘Jersey Girl” rather than the junket they’re planning. The budget for Jersey Girl is $35 million. That price tag obviously bothers Kev considering he said he hasn’t made a movie that’s grossed over $30 million. When asked about the pros and cons of working with a big budget on a movie he harkened back to the Mallrats days when he wanted to put in a joke about Silent Bob jerking off to the sight of Joey Lauren Adams’ character undressing then Bob shooting his load over into her dressing room and onto her hair. He said the censors at Universal said, ‘you can’t have a cum shot in a movie, that’s pornographic and especially no when it touches someone’s hair.’ “A couple of years later,” Kevin says, “Cameron Diaz gets cum in her hair and it’s on the movie’s poster.” Kev said he wished he would have stuck to his guns on the cumshot joke but buckled under the studio’s pressure.