STERNAL JOURNAL: The wildest thing Julian learned on his trip to the UK and a thrilling conclusion.
Dearest Sternal Journalists,
I haven't much time! I just got back from two and a half weeks in the United Kingdom, who, if you haven't heard, are having quite a um moment in terms of national unity and everyone was very apologetic to me, an American.
It was cute, like when you go to someone's house and they say "Sorry it's such a mess." and you're like, "Trust me, this is not messy."
I learned and experienced a lot and would love to tell you all about it, but in the interest of time, I will share with you the thing that stuck with me the most,
But first, SHOWS!
SKETCH THAT TUNE - THIS SUNDAY @ 9:30 - THE PACK THEATER
(This is always a fun show and I'll be doing a song)
JULIAN STERN, AS PER USUAL, BLOWS YOU AWAY - NEXT SUNDAY @ 5:30 - THE LYRIC HYPERION THEATER
(This is my first crack at putting all of the live performance stuff I've been working on recently into one cohesive show. I promise it will be fun if you can make it. I also promise to put it up with more bells and whistles in the future if you can't.)
SISSY FIGHT - WEDNESDAY 9/25 8PM - BARKADA HOLLYWOOD
(This is a new stand up show co-created and hosted by Samee Junio, or as the true fans will know them, SAMEEINTHEBOOTH. The lineup is superb: Ever Mainard, Addie Weyrich, Atsuko Okatsuka, Smaranda Luna, and me!)
Now to that British fact:
Did you know spaghetti bolognese is really British? Like really, really British? No less than 3 people I was staying with in one week offered to make it. Also, they call it "spag bol," which sounds kind of like a latin term for some sort of medical growth when you read it, but with the accent, they pull it off.
I know this doesn't seem like that interesting of a fact, but that's because you aren't understanding just how popular it was. You can order it in pubs!I just found an article that says maybe it even started in England!
Alright, anyway, if you want to see pictures of the trip, go to my Instagram, but if you want to read the final installment in my transcript of the interview with Kevin Smith, read on down!
(If you missed one or both of the last two Sternal Journals, this is an old transcript I love of an interview I did with filmmaker Kevin Smith. Parts 1 and 2 are here and here.)
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JS: Okay. Name one thing you’re glad you’ll never have to do again on Earth.
KS: Pull Ups. Hated that shit. I haven’t done it since high school, man. I remember being in gym, and they lined us up at the pull up bar, and they’re like, “Go, Kev.”
You jump up, you grab the bar, and I couldn’t do a single pull up. I remember just hanging there in front of like fifty, sixty kids in gym. Girls andguys. Friends andenemies. And just like, having no strength, and that’s when--you know, in the first world society that we live in, when you can be quick and clever with a turn of phrase, you’ll go far, you cango far and whatnot, but if everything collapses, and we go back primal, being able to do a pull up is important.
So I could never do it, man. And motherfuckers would always fuckin’ remind me, like, “What if you’re hangin’ from a cliff, Kev?!” I would be like, “I guess I’m gonna die.” So, I know I’m 42. I haven’t had to do a pull up since then. I don’t have any unresolved issues like, “If I couldjustdo one pull up in this life!” Fuck it. I don’t need to. Like, it sucked hanging there, and I hope to neverbe hanging from a cliff, and if I amhanging from a cliff, well then, unless it’s somebody dangling me from a cliff, then it’s my own goddamn fault that I got there, so I can’t readily expect to always save myself.
You’ll probably have a little chuckle before you fall off.
Yeah. Like, “I should’ve practiced mooooore!”
What’s the wildest thing you ever did while alive?
While alive?
Yeah, ‘cuz we’re talking as if you’re-
Oh, that’s right. Oh my god. What’s the wildest thing I did while I was alive? Um, honestly, it sounds stupid and self-promote-y, but the wildest thing I ever did, especially considering my character and who I really am, was make Clerks.
It was so fuckin’ uncharacteristic. I was not that guy. I wasn’t the dude that, “Hey, let’s go make a movie.” I had zero fuckin’ initiative. All my friends went on to college. I didn’t even wanna do that. I was just working at a convenience store and livin’ with my parents and then I saw Richard Linklater’s Slacker and I was like, “You know what? I wanna be a filmmaker, too.”
So hands down, that was the wildest thing I ever did. Never did anything wild after that. Did one wild thing, it gave me everything I have in life, and I was just like, “Alright, fuckin’- that’s it. I’m done bein’ wild.” I stopped riding roller coasters after Clerks got picked up because I was like, “It would be so fuckin’ dumb to die nowin a roller coaster accident.
So you haven’t ridden a roller coaster since Clerks?
Nope. I mean, Space Mountain doesn’t really count ‘cause it’s about the safest fuckin’ roller coaster on the planet.
Yeah. If you could come back and spy on someone, who would it be and why?
Hm. I naturally wanna say, “The wife! To make sure she’s not fuckin’.” But once I’m out the game, all bets are off. Like, you know, her contract’s over. She’s not in perpetuity. She’s just married to this organization for the length of the contract, so when the contract’s done, you know, she’s free agent.
So there’s- I would be curious how she- what road she went down, but I don’t think I’d sit down and kind of watch and haunt her. I guess my kid, hands down. I think she’s kinda interesting.
She’s thirteen, so she’s startin’ her journey, so naturally, I’d be way interested in seeing where my daughter went, but at the same time, I wanna make sure that I time those visits well so I’m not there for, “My first second base!” and shit like that. That would be horrifying to ghost dad.
What would--you may have already covered this, but what is your proudest accomplishment?
Um, proudest accomplishment. Um, hm, you would think it would be Clerks, but no, not really. It mighta been Clerks 2. I mean, my proudest accomplishment is the kid for what little involvement I had. It was, “Euhh!”, and then gave some chromosomes and shit, and then mercifully, that was all it took.
But I mean, in terms of like man-made shit or whatever, like, “Imade this!”, um, it--we got a standing ovation in Cannes for Clerks 2. It went for 8 minutes. that felt kinda fuckin’ cool. Really felt like an artist at that moment. You know, I was always fightin’ that feeling, but I was like, “Wow. This is badass.”
So I was proud of that. I mean, I still fuckin’ talk about it and mind you, that was in 2006, so I’m still slingin’ shit seven years later, goin, “I once got a standing ovation in Cannes for eight minutes!” But it was, that was cool. Kind of a highlight for me of the career.
Cool. What about biggest regret?
Biggest regret was, I wanted to crowdsource finance Red State, and we built a website called RedStateGreen, and this was before KickStarter existed, and the idea was to, “Hey man. Like, all the fans say they wanna see the movie. If they want to put in, we can finance it that way.”
So we spent time building the website, was getting ready to do it, and then I talked about it in one interview. I was like, “Ya know, I couldn’t find the money for Red State, so I think we’re gonna turn to the audience because they’ve all said on Twitter that they would pay for it, and bla bla bla”
And then, another website, some blogger wrote, “Ew. Kevin Smith is begging for money for his horror movie.” And then I immediately dropped the whole thing. I told my producer John Gordon, we can’t do this money thing. Somebody called me a beggar online."
And I so regret that to this day. Like, when we went to SunDance with Red State, it would’ve been so awesome to be up there and be like, “This movie was financed by the fans!” And we totally would’ve been able to do it, but I got scared. That was the last time I ever got scared and kind of bowed to an outside pressure.
You know, rather than just follow the inner voice, I was like, “Oh my god.” Like, that was so high school, dude, to be like, “Oh, I don’t wanna be called a beggar.” and put down what I knewwas a fuckin’ good idea, so I’ll regret that ‘til the day I die. Butit was also a really strong lesson for me where nobody will ever talk me out of anything again, and I mean, this person wasn’t even trying.
They just wrote an opinion piece or something like that, but from now on, I was like, “I gotta follow the gut instinct.” And even if people are callin’ ya names, sometimes first through the door, you gotta take a few bullets.
Do you know- what year was that?
Two thousand and... Cop Out was about to come out, so two thousand and nine. It was February of 2009. I was in Toronto doin’ press, and I said, “Hey man, we’re gonna do this website where we kind of try to raise money through the fanbase. They said they wanted to pay for it.”
And then by the time I--it was in Toronto, we didn’t show ‘em Cop Out, but I was doing Cop Out press because it was like, I just happened to be in Toronto a month before the movie opened, and by the time I landed, got home, like a day later, there was a horror movie website--I can’t remember--for my own mythology, I should go back and find it, but I don’t even wanna give the dude fuckin’ credit even if I did find it, but it was a horror movie website, and the guy that wrote the piece just tore me a new one about fuckin, “pay for it yourself!” and “beggin!” and all this shit.
Same shit you read about now when--the complaints seem to be getting quieter and shit, but it used to be that whole, “You’re beggin’!” kinda thing, and now, it’s less of that.
Now, people understand the concept more and stuff, but yeah, that will always bug me man, but like I said, it was kinda rocket fuel too because I was a- it proves that [no matter] how old you are--I was thirty-eight, almost thirty-nine at that point, would that be right? Yes.
It proves that no matter how old you are, man, you can still learn a lesson about how strong you aren’t. You know? So it made me stronger, but I was so mad that I was weak in that moment.
[[[Julian note: This next question, especially after that last one, is very dumb and pretty sexist because. It was one of the rote questions from the regular feature, but also KS gives a relatively non-problematic answer to my very problematic question]]]
Is there a woman that you always wanted to sleep with that you didn’t?
Um, lemme see. Not really, man. I was always- I’m fat and I grew up fat and I’ve always been fat, so fat dudes are very appreciative for any piece of pussy comes their way, so it’s never about, “Who aren’t we fucking?” It’s just, we’re so slobberingly grateful to be fucking at all.
We’re living embodiments of love the one you’re with kinda thing. But, so I’ve never- there’s no one out there that I’m like, “Man, if only.” I’m happy to report that. Otherwise, marriage would’ve been a weird concept or prospect. If I was like, “Hey man, I’m committin’ my life to you, but in my head, I wanna fuck somebody else.”
Got it. Is there anyone notable at your funeral, and what band is playing?
Uh, I would- hands down, I would say the most notable person at my funeral is Jason Mewes. Jay to Silent Bob. And then what music is playin’? Um. My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade.” Which means that, even in death, there’ll be a bunch of fuckin’ people goin’, “You fuckin’ bitch, they suck!” Shit like that, and complaining on the internet,. But I think that’d be a good song to be laid to rest to.
And why is Jason Mewes the most notable person?
Um. You know, ‘cuz fuckin’ Ben Affleck can’t be bothered. That would be it. I don’t know anybody famous. Over the course of twenty years, man, I wish I could report like, “The president!” You know what? Maybe Stan Lee’ll be there. Because even though he’s like ninety, he’ll still outlive me.
Yeah. What are people saying over your casket?
“Wow. The casket adds ten pounds.”
And any last words? We already sort of covered it.
Yeah, but if I get official last words. Where somebody’s like, “Yes?” And leaning forward.
I mean, you’re tempted to quote a movie, because people would be like, “That’s so metal. He went out quoting Star Trek.” But I think, originality in that moment. The last thing you’re gonna say should be something counter-original. And so for me, I think I’d go with, um, lemme see, “There’s only two things in life that are certain. Death and taxes.”
And then when I die, they’d be like, “That’s an old quote.” But they’re like,”Yeah, but he put a Kevin Smith spin on it.
Cool. And then, once and for all, Batman or Superman?
Batman.
Period.
I mean, it’d be Batman all day long, twice on Sunday.
****
There you have it! The finished product of this interview was very concise and fun and light, but I've always loved the full transcript for the moments of inspiration (make your thing! Deny the haters! Never do a pull-up!) and the way he's able to really stay conversationally interesting throughout. Harder than you think!
Now quickly, other recommendations!
Podcast: 1619 Episode 3: The Birth of American Music. This is a brand new podcast from the New York Times as part of their 1619 project, an overarching initiative to explore the 400th anniversary of the birth of American slavery. The whole series is great, but I was blown away by this history Wesley Morris sets up connecting minstrelsy to yacht rock.
Music: I have listened to this new Danny Brown song produced by Q-Tip, this new Mika song, and this new album by supergroup The Highwomen (favorite tracks were the lead singles Redesigning Women and Crowded Table) each probably ten to fifteen times.
Okay, that's all I really gotta go! Read things, come to shows, put your own shows on, whatever, have fun!
Until next time!
Julian