• The indie film “Big Helium Dog”, which is being produced by Kevin and filming in Red Bank this summer, needs some extras! Think you’ve got what it takes? Here’s the requirements:

• Subject: “Re: So you want to be an extra….?”

  Brian Lynch’s uber-classic sci-fi/murder/mystery epic BIG HELIUM DOG has some spaces open for extras…..BUT!!!!

  To be considered you have to meet the following criteria:

  a) You have to be willing to have your head shaved.
  b) You have to be local to Red Bank or willing to drive in for the day.
  c) You have to bring your own lunch.
  d) You have to call a national radio or TV show and somehow manage to say the words “BIG HELIUM DOG” on the air (proof required).
  e) You have to email oz@viewaskew.com to apply.

  Applications will be taken for the next week and only a limited number will be accepted.

Drop Oz a line if you’re up to the task, but HURRY! We’re a little late with this news, so there’s not much time left!

• Hey, we’ve been getting some cool logos in the mailbox these past couple of weeks, in fact, they’ve been SO good it’s going to be tough to choose just one. We’d love to hear your ideas,and for those of you who haven’t entered yet or want to enter again, maybe you’ll even get some help as well. By the way, if you haven’t had time to come up with a good Drinks Askew logo but still want to help, don’t fret! We may be looking for a smaller News Askew logo to head up the news section (after this contest ends). Stick around! Thanks for all the submissions so far. 11 days ’til we pick our winner!

• Alright, so it’s way old, but this is also pretty cool. If you’re planning a trip to the Red Bank area and don’t want to venture to Leonardo for the usual Quick Stop/RST Video trip that seems to have become so popular, why not hunt down some of these spots? Here’s a bunch of locations that were used in “Chasing Amy”, as listed in the April 8th edition of the Asbury Park Press :

• Jack’s Music Shoppe and nearby apartment, 30 Broad Street, Red Bank. Hooper and Holden banter about sexual preferences at the store, and Holden and Banky live in the apartment.
• Victory Park, River Road, Rumson. Alyssa and Holden fall in love on the park’s swings. The Oceanic Fire House and Oceanic Bridge are in the background.
• The Galleria, Bridge Avenue, Red Bank. Holden bids Banky bye-bye at this train station set. An earlier shot of the actual train station is featured, too.
• The Marina Diner, Route 36 and Seeley Street, Belford, Middletown Township. Silent Bob speaks! Smith, playing the nontalkative one, opens up about losing the love of his life. Jay and Holden listen.
• Berkeley Carteret Hotel, Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park. Site of the comic book convention.
• Side Street. Mechanic Street, Red Bank, where Alyssa and Banky argue in the rain
• “Red Bank, New Jersey.” Wide shot of Broad Street, Red Bank, where Banky and Holden live. You can see Prown’s department store in the background.
• Take a Shot Billiards Club, House of Coffee, Background shots, Bridge Avenue, Red Bank.
• Asbury Park Boardwalk, Ocean avenue, Asbury Park. Holden and Alyssa play skeeball.
• Red Bank Catholic High School, Broad Street, Red Bank. Banky waxes on the charms of underage girls in school uniforms.
• Ocean Ice Palace, 197 Chambersbridge Rd. Brick Township. Ice hockey game.
• Quick Stop, 58 Leonard Ave., Leonardo, Middletown Township. A loudmouth spills the beans on Alyssa’s sexual peccadilloes in front of the store Smith immortalized in his 1994 film, “Clerks”.

• Well, myself and a bunch of other View Askew fans cranked up the speakers and opened our RealAudio sessions up to listen live to Kevin’s chat on Esoterica last night. For those of you who missed it, here’s a summary of what went down & what we learned:

• A few IRC and WWWBoard regulars got in on the phone lines. VioLenT BoB, whom some of you may know from the board, got quite a few words in, including his main question about Big Helium Dog, and even snuck a “News Askew” inthere for us. Thanks, BoB! Upon being questioned about secret stuff in Dogma or the 5th film, Kev said something to the effect of (not exact quote), “I think he missed the target and hit a tree.” (referring to the next film’s plot revolving around a theme park). Hmmm…
• Kevin’s in the talking/early planning stages of possibly holding his own ComicCon in the New Jersey area. This would be VERY cool if it came to light. If anyone can make it happen, we’re sure that Kev can!
• “Dogma” will begin lensing in February, with filming continuing into June. Filming takes place in Memphis, mainly due to weather conditions necessary for the film.
• Kev hasn’t read his e-mail in over a month now, so if you e-mailed him recently or were planning to do that, we’d suggest posting your questions/comments on the WWWBoard instead.
• The hosts of Esoterica don’t know too much about Kevin Smith aside from the Clerks laserdisc they watched the night before the interview, and the female (Astra) seems to swear uncontrollably. Some of the more painful things I heard spoken by the hosts were, “Is Bluntman & Chronic a real comic?”,”It was so funny, I was pissing myself” (overheard several times), as well as an argument the host trying to have with Kev about none of his dialogue being ad-libbed, and citing the cut scenes from Clerks (as I said before, their only source of Smith info) as an example of ad-libbing. I suppose any footage that gets cut from a movie is an ad-lib in that man’s world. The way some people think…

Basically, I think the phone calls carried the show. For a listener who’s been in the dark about what’s been going on lately, I suppose a good portion of the show (when Kev got to talk) might be pretty informative for you. For those of you who read our board and the WWWBoard pretty regularly, you’ve just about heard it all. Then again, I think this will most likely ALWAYS be the case.

Here’s a direct feed to last night’s Esoterica show! It’s around an hour long, so get comfortable and grab a sandwich or something (and be sure you have RealAudio/Player installed) before you start the show…

• Kevin Smith on Esoterica (Sunday, July 27th, 1997)
• Download RealAudio Player

• Let’s open by saying that it’s great to see Kev back on the WWWBoard. Wasn’t the same without ya around there! Here’s a direct (and very informative) excerpt from a post of his yesterday:

Very cool stuff. Definitely looking forward to the comic, we’ll try and get you the latest scoops on that one. Nice to hear Joey’s doing well, and VERY cool to hear Jason Lee might be makingsome sort of “Dogma” appearance. Movie just wouldn’t be the same without him, IMHO.

• Due to a coding error that’s been there since we started the page way back in may, I had to reset the counter at the bottom of ONLY this main page (If anyone even noticed!). Hits are coming in quite nicely since the reset, although unfortunately whoever hit number 37 didn’t find the need to e-mail us. Oh well. Heheh…Oh, and those of you who downloaded the Clerks drinking game? There’s been a new rule added, so version 1.3 is now online. Be sure to get your update if you’re playing along at home! Finally, I tried to go back and fix all of my typos on the page. I can spell, really I can, it’s just that I type this stuff in so darn fast I always end up missing all my mistakes. I probably made some mistakes in this paragraph talking about my mistakes. But I digress. In a nutshell, please let me know if you ever see any mistakes so I can fix ‘em up and save some face.

• Looks like “Chasing Amy” will definitely be out on both Laserdisc (In a special Criterion edition) and videocassette sometime in December. This is a bit longer than the normal six month theatre-to-video window, but not out of the ordinary for Miramax. We’re keeping an eye on the video trades, and will have a definite release date for you as soon as we can.

Rumor has it that Criterion sometimes messes with the running commentary on their laserdiscs by recording each member on a seperate track and then switching from person to person rather than letting them all talk at once, as on the Clerks disc. Hopefully they’ll stick with the old way. It’s a lot more fun. Let us know if you have any details on the Criterion disc.

• Last night, we loaded up the fridge and sat down with the “Clerks” Laserdisc to play the drinking game. Here’s what we found out in this session:

• The first drinks of the game come from the “Lenin’s Tomb” rule. In fact, this turns out tobe one of the most brutal rules in the entire game! That darn cat is around more than you’dimagine!
• Looks like you’ll finish around 6 or 7 drinks during the course of the film, which has arunning time of 92 minutes. This is definitely enough to give the average person a pretty good ride.
• We’re going to need to add a rule that has to do with the mention of shoe polish.
• The “37” scene is killer! In fact, there’s quite a few lulls in the film which allow you to catch your breath, but when you least expect it…BAM!

Play the Clerks Drinking Game by clicking here and see for yourself. And don’t forget to send us your stories from playing, and any rule suggestions you might have.

• First of all, let me say, “Hooray!”. Links to this page have been added to View Askew’s Home Page in both their Links Askew and their version of the News Askew section (Damn, they even got a LOGO already! Hehehe…). Anyway: sincerely, thanks, Ming! As for what the deal/difference is with ours and Ming’s News Askew sections, here’s an excerpt from apost from Ming on the WWWBoard:

There you have it, folks! As I said below, I think our sites will be able to serve as fine companion pieces for each other.

It’s been a long day, and I’m pretty tired, but check back with us tomorrow and we’ll give you an update on the highlights of the Esoterica chat (A few friends of yours and ours from the IRCand WWWBoard even made an appearance!) as well as all the other good stuff you can expect in our daily updates. See ya then!

• Kevin’s chat on http://www.pseudo.com has had a slight time change from 7:00PM EST tonight to 8:00PM EST tonight. If you hate their java client as much as I do, just point your IRC program to irc.psuedo.com, port 6667 to join in the fun! The system for asking questions still seems fuzzy, it may only be a call in. At least stop by to hear the chat though. See ya there!