By MIKE LENGYEL
News Askew Writer

LOS ANGELES, California (NA) – April 23, 2005

Going into its ninth straight year, the LA TIMES sponsored FESTIVAL OF BOOKS held on the campus grounds at UCLA, continues its time-honored tradition of bringing together a collection of both popular and eclectic authors together to sign and discuss their recent works.

Over it’s two-day weekend stretch, the festival welcomed such critically acclaimed authors as Ray Bradbury, Alice Hoffman, Richard Matteson, Walter Mosley, James Patterson and Anne Perry, as well as the likes of the first woman in space, Sally Ride, Vietnam activist, Ron Kovic, California’s First Lady, Maria Shiver, NY Post’s gossip columnist Liz Smith and underground music hero turned author, Andy Prieboy all of which were scheduled to be in attendance this year.

But being centrally located on the UCLA campus offers attendees a little dose of Hollywood star-gazing as well considering several actors, producers, screenwriters and entertainment journalists have also taken a shine to the written word. Some of these guests present included such names as producers Stephen J. Cannell, Lynda Obst, actors Carrie Fisher, Beau & Jeff Bridges, Eric Idle, Ricky Jay and Carl Reiner, screenwriters Jerry Stahl and Michael Tolkin as well as prolific Hollywood journalists Peter Biskind, Leonard Maltin, Richard Shickel and Peter Bart.

Add to that list, Jersey-wood multi-threat, Kevin Smith. The writer-director-actor can now add yet another growing notch to his ever building Hollywood career – that now of author which comes with the most recent arrival of his book entitled simply, “SILENT BOB SPEAKS”. While the book is not a traditional novel or bio as some might expect, it is however a collection of essays, columns and articles that Smith has written over the past several years. Smith jokes that the book has been nearly two years in the making mainly due to the fact that all he needed new to contribute prior to the book going to press was write a simple intro, which took nearly two years of procrastinating before finally penning.

And thus, “SILENT BOB SPEAKS” has recently been released by Talk/Miramax Books and has already sold out its first initial pressing of 15,000 – a number that Smith notes may not be the same league as Tom Clancy-type numbers, but still the fact that the first printing has already sold out leaves him feeling rather proud just the nonetheless.

Speaking to a mainly college crowd of a few hundred, Smith opted against reading aloud from his book as most authors do, and simply went straight to the audience to field questions, which led to a barrage of varying topics ranging from his thoughts of the newly elect Pope Benedict, to “a where are they now” update on the career of “Growing Pains’” Kirk Cameron, Smith’s own desire to write a children’s book, and then reluctantly physically re-enacting his take of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy as well as envisioning HIS alternate ending for the trilogy if he had it his way eliciting much laughter and applause from the audience. But whenever the questions sided to more technical questions, such as Smith’s own writing process, he appeared bored with his answers on the subject and quickly moved on.

The one single highlight of the one-hour long set though, belonged to one seemingly nervous fan who kept brushing the right side of his face with his jacket, as he sheepishly asked Smith for a job, to which Smith quickly shot back, “Do you know what a fluffer is?” Then, once the audience laughter subdued, Smith quipped back, “Hey a hand job is still a job. The pay’s not great though.”

Without moving from the mic the same fan then asked if he could ask Smith for yet another favor – to help him convince a girl who was sitting elsewhere in the audience that he’s asked out previously 2 ½ times to go out with him. When asked to point out the object of his affection to Smith, the young female coed was quickly pointed out sitting mid-center in the crowd clearly embarrassed by being ousted on the spot. When asked what the “½” of his asking her out 2 ½ times was, the student remarked that her answer to him a that point was that she was a lesbian. A tactic that Smith immediately pointed out as being a near genius way of revenge, if indeed she was, and now was publicly ousted by the somewhat obsessed Romeo in front of an audience of her peers.

When urged by Smith to try asking her out again in front of the crowd, the love-spurred student then in a desperate moved, tried to sweeten the deal by acknowledging how he had a few hundred bucks with him and wanted to know if she’d like to drive down to Mexico with him, which was then quickly answered with a resounding “no.”

“Well that’s now 3 ½ times,” Smith said to the meek student as he quickly took back his seat, still rubbing the side of his face with the inside of his jacket trying to salvage whatever dignity he may still have left.

After Smith’s Q&A session he was informed that the organizers had cut-off the signing at 100 people, which then led Smith to quickly offer up an impromptu signing down the street at his store, JAY AND SILENT BOB’S SECRET STASH, to accommodate anyone who may have been cut-off.

After signing at the festival, Smith kept his word and met with fans to sign even more books and merchandise and offer up photo opportunities before finally wrapping up around 7pm.

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