How I met Kevin fucking Smith yesterday...

 I stumbled across a YouTube clip from the Stephen Colbert show, interviewing Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes about the new movie, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.  Kevin said they were doing a tour to promote it, and he said on October 14th, something awesome was going to happen, they were getting hand and footprints at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood.  I thought, "I'm fucking there."  So as I struggle to draw Sharpie pictures and somehow get my scraggly ass out of homelessness, I remembered to head over the hill (actually under, I take the train) from Studio City, since I'm so close.  So go back and read the last post, about how I watched from across the street, then got outside the fan section, and then magically got in the fan section.

 Then, happy to be standing 8 feet away, Kevin Smith started talking to the fans in front of me.  I got the photo above of Kevin (white hat for losers who don't know), as my phone was on it's last bit of battery.  Then... more magic... people got their selfies with Kevin, and then left, and suddenly I was one person away from the fence.  Next thing I know, I was up front, and Kevin Smith took a step, and I asked him to sign my goofy sign.

The funny thing was, he took the sign and signed it, and he was completely cool.  He looked, the whole time, like he couldn't believe all this was actually happening.  At the time, I thought he seemed like a little kid that just got to Disneyland for the first time.  He had this "Holy shit, is all this really happening?" vibe.  But thinking about it later, Kevin was more stoked than that.  He was like a 13-year-old boy would be if you snuck him into a strip club, an all nude one.  He couldn't believe the whole scene was real. 
"Gracious" was the word that popped into my head.  Kevin Smith was completely down to Earth, cool as fuck, and gracious that this all happened.  It's cool to meet people whose work you really respect and admire.  But when you meet them, and they come across as just a great human being, it's fucking epic.  Meeting Kevin Smith yesterday was epic.

I said something like, "Hey, I've been a fan since Clerks, and glad you're still around (he had a major heart attack last year), keep writing funny shit."  He said something back I'm too lame to remember, and handed me my sign back.  Then he reached out to shake my hand.  He wasn't rushing, he spent a solid minute or two talking to each person.  I was stoked as fuck.

After he walked away, I looked at the my sign.  The quote, Dante's line, that Kevin wrote for Clerks, was "I'm not even supposed to be here today."  Kevin Smith wrote below that, "I agree."  Fucking classic.

Then, a few minutes later Jason Mewes got away from the interviews, and came back to the fans, and I got him to sign my sign as well, as he was being pulled away to do another interview.  He signed it quick, started to hand it back, and then pulled it back and added some Jay-speak, "Snootch." 

Suddenly, I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard with one of the coolest pieces of Hollywood movie memorabilia in existence, I have a panhandling sign signed by Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, aka Jay and Silent Bob, aka Bluntman and Chronic.  Epic fucking day.  Thanks Kevin and Jay, and everyone for a cool time, and for making some of the funniest movies ever. 

This WILL NOT be sold on eBay.  It's mine motherfuckers.

Photos of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes Handprint Ceremony

 This is the scene of the fun yesterday.  For decades, going way back into silent film days, and through the Golden Age of Hollywood, it was Grumman's Chinese theater.  When I worked over the hill on the American Gladiators crew (and a few others) in the early 1990's, it was Mann's Chinese theater.  These days, it's TCL Chinese theater, and it's where famous actors have been putting their hand prints and footprints in cement for like 80 years.  The sidewalk was rerouted around the little bleachers, which were actually a media platform, but blocked the view for fans.  I tried to stand inside those orange barriers, but security kept moving along so we couldn't stand there.  So I posted up across the street, where I could see the stage, though kind of far away, and could hear the mike at first, then the audio faded out.  So I didn't hear anything after Ben Affleck's first few words.

 Here's Ben Affleck, who got his first big role, and several more decent roles, in Kevin Smith movies.  Yeah, that's him below the blue light in the center of the shot.  Not optimal viewing, but I could see the stage during the actual event.  I tried to find a closer place to stand earlier, but the security woman said, "Oh, there's a line over there," and pointed to the West side of the theater, around the corner.  I went there, and there was no line.  So I watched from across the street.

 After the speeches, when Kevin and Jason were actually putting their hand and feet prints, they went out of sight.  So I decided to try and find a close view.  I went into a little entryway, and it opened up to the side of the scene.  This, above, is my view from there.  There were two security guys,  guarding a fence, and this was the actual fans section, but it was closed off, nobody else was getting in.  So I had my funny cardboard sign, and I watched as fans got selfies with Kevin, Jason, and a couple other Kevin Smith movie alums, and they all were doing multiple interviews.  I thought this was as close as I was going to get.  Hey, there are very few people in Hollywood I'd walk across the street to see.  But Kevin Smith's stuff is hilarious, original, and I love his movies.  I've been a fan since Clerks.  And his random talks about making movies, which are just as funny.

After standing there, after the official ceremony, I stood behind that fence, 40 feet away from the action, for about 20, maybe 30 minutes.  Finally things were winding down, Jason Mewes had taken a few selfies with fans, then got pulled across the set to do TV interviews.  Brian O'Halloran, who played Dante in Clerks, the guy who said the epic line I put on my sign, was there.  I had to look up his name just now, but I recognized him.  It was only then, a couple hours into my Jay and Silent Bob hand print adventure, that I thought, "Hey, it'd be cool to get him to sign my sign.  But I was back in uncool person land. 

Along the way, about ten other fans saw my sign, and stopped me to take photos.  I was unshaven, I looked like hell, because, well, I AM homeless, and I'm moving around all day to get wifi and power and to draw the current picture, to make a few bucks.  So I'm scummed out most of the time.  So it was funny that 8 or 10 people wanted photos of my goofy sign, and me.  

Then things just fell into place again.  Another fan talked the guards about letting him in, since basically everything was over, except Kevin and Jason doing more TV/internet interviews, and talking to the 40 or so fans there.  So the guards decided to let that guy in, and the tall guard pointed at me, because I'd been chill, and joking with him for 20 minutes, and he said, "Let this guy go too."  So this photo is me behind the fan crowd, inside the fan area, thinking, OK, THIS is as close as I'll get.  I'll maybe be able to get a photo of Kevin from 6 or 8 feet away, right before my phone dies.  Cool.  That was it for another ten minutes.