On Saturday, Nov. 16, 1997, Kevin Smith had a Q&A session at The College of New Jersey (aka Trenton State College). The show started at 6 PM with a showing of Chasing Amy. I got myself a nice seat right in front of where Kevin was going to be speaking.

I must say, after seeing Chasing Amy for a second time, I really love this film. It’s funny as hell and some of the scenes between Ben Affleck and Jeoy Lauren Adams are incredible, especially the one in the rain. After Chasing Amy was over, we were treated to some waiting and some refreshments. At about 8:15, the lights dimmed and Kevin was announced. He came out to a tremendous ovation from myself and everyone else. He opened with a very witty line, which I wish I could remember and then he says something to the effect of, “Well, I never like to travel in Jersey alone, so I brought a friend with me.” So Kevin waved someone in from the side, and the place went nuts! It was Jason Mewes! I was thrilled because we were not told he was going to be there. Jay came out wearing sweats and a ‘Clerks’ t-shirt, eating gumballs from a carton, and gave a big “Snootchie-bootchies” to the crowd. It kicked ass.

Anyway, he sat down in a chair next to the podium that Kevin was standing at. Kevin decided to open up the floor for questions. I think he was kind of annoyed that the spot light was shining directly in his face so he couldn’t see anyone in the crowd, so they turned it down.

Now I can’t remember every question, but I’ll give you some of the highlights. One guy stole my question and asked about the Superman script. Kevin gave us a great story about how he kept getting asked to come in and he kept telling them that their script sucked. Eventually, he was asked to write it and he waited till the last week to write it. Then, after Tim Burton got hired on, Kevin’s script was dropped. I must say that Kevin Smith is one of the funniest and best story tellers I have ever heard. Now I see where all these great movies come from.

Another question was asked about how Kevin and Jay met. Kevin said that at first he didn’t like Jason and then one day at a rec center that Kevin worked at, Jay came in and proceeded to “felate everything that looked somewhat fallic for 15 minutes”. After that, Kevin knew he liked him. He also talked about the Fashion Show incident with Jack Nicholson which is a great story and is best told on the View Askew homepage. Probably one of the funniest things said was when Kevin was talking about how one guy from the Washington Post wrote up a really bad review for one of his movies (I can’t remember which). Kevin said something to the effect of, “I can’t blame him for hating my movies, after all, I fucked his mom”. It was really damn funny.

Another really funny moment came when one guy stands up and says, “Remember that scene in Mallrats where Brody and T.S. are talking about farting in front of girls and Brody says that he farted when a girl went down on him……that was great.” That was it. He sat down. So Kevin says, “Wow, if every question was like that, we would be outta here a lot quicker, huh?” Kevin is a damn witty guy.

So after a little more than an hour of questions, Kevin decided to show some cut scenes from Chasing Amy which are going to be on the Laserdisc. The first was the scene of Steve-Dave and the other guy playing a Magic: The Gathering type game and ragging on Benky and Holden about their comic. I won’t ruin the scene for those who haven’t seen it, but it’s pretty funny.

Another scene was a scene with the lawyer in the office of the cartoon making guys (O’Halloran and Damon), another funny scene. Then, Kevin showed some yet unseen outtakes from Chasing Amy which were real funny. One was the scene at the Comicon where Hooper is talking about his comic, etc. Well, the camera is focused on Ben Affleck and Jason Lee and Jason Lee can not stop laughing. Ben Affleck tries to regain his composure several times, but everytime he looks at Jason, he starts laughing.

Another scene was where Ben says “Ahh, that’s a bunch of horseshit!” but instead he is trying to say “That’s a bunch of hogwash!” and he can’t seem to get it right.

The last scene he showed was where Alyssa comes to Holden’s door and is talking about how he left the night before and Holden can’t seem to remember his line.

Afterwards, Kevin took some more questions for about a half-hour. One very funny story was told about the monkey in Mallrats, it is one you have to hear for yourself.

After the show, there was an autograph session that I regret to say I could not attend. Overall, the entire night was awesome. If Kevin ever reads this, I just want to say that you kick ass!!!