The Rich Roll Podcast - Kevin Smith On The Heart Attack That Saved His Life & The Art Of Prolific Creativity

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

About 610,000 people die of heart disease in the United States every year. In other words, America's number one killer claims 1 out of every 4 deaths. Not all heart attacks are fatal. But when your heart's left anterior descending artery becomes 100% blocked, the result is a massive heart attack known as The Widowmaker. Few survive its fatal clutch. Kevin Smith is the rare exception that proves the rule. The arch villain in his own personal superhero comic book narrative, Kevin's Widowmaker nemesis failed in it's dastardly quest to claim his young life. Instead, like Spiderman in the aftermath of that fateful bite, it made our protagonist hero stronger — more convicted about his life, purpose, family and art. One might even say it gave him superpowers — a new life animated by an urgent productivity. An emboldened creativity. And, more than anything, a spirit ennobled. This week's guest beat the odds. But this should come as no surprise for those well versed in the Kevin Smith canon. Because Kevin has always been an outlier — a fiercely independent voice who has been successfully cutting against the grain for as long as he can remember. Today this charismatic master storyteller shares his most amazing tale to date — the story of Kevin Smith. For the few unfamiliar among us, Kevin is a filmmaker, actor, comedian, comic book writer, author and early podcast pioneer. In 1994 he burst into prominence with his hyper low-budget comedy Clerks, a film he wrote, directed, co-produced, and filmed in the convenience store where he worked. Premiering at Sundance, it was feted with the festival's highest award before going on to become an indie cult classic. In addition to countless appearances in both movies and television, Kevin has created a litany of films, including Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Cop Out, Jersey Girl, Red State, Tusk, Yoga Hosers and Clerks 2. Just last week he wrapped production on Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. An iconic and beloved character amongst indie film fans and comic book nerds, Kevin is immediately recognizable and famous for his hockey jerseys, backwards hat and well, his weight. But in February of 2018, between sets of one his stand-up shows, Kevin suffered his aforementioned heart attack. A lifestyle change was needed. Desperately. Harley Quinn Smith (a vegan herself) suggested Kevin adopt a plant-based diet. Kevin obliged. For the first time in ages, he began exercising. In short shrift, he lost 50 pounds. His blood work normalized. And the rest is history. Today we unpack all of it. How maxing out his credit cards spawned an entire career. His perspective on podcasting as one of the very first to embrace the medium. And of course the amazing transformation that compelled me to seek him out. Heart disease is ubiquitous. But as Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn is so fond of saying, it's a toothless paper tiger that need not exist. So if you feel stuck in lifestyle habits that are leading to your own fateful confrontation with that villainous Widowmaker, my greatest hope is that this conversation catalyzes the required changes well within your grasp to master — because inside all of us is a latent superhero waiting to unleash its fury on the unnecessary evil that is heart disease. As a long time fan of Kevin, it was an absolute delight and honor to spend a few hours with him. I love everything about this exchange. I hope you do too. Final note: I conducted this interview at Kevin's house, so no video version of this episode. Enjoy! Rich

Like I realize it's way more interesting if like you're the art project. If like don't identify as an artist, be the art. Just spin as many plates as possible. Do all the shit you dream about. You grow a layer, you know, of skin, thicker skin. But also you just learn what it is. You learn to take it all in stride. You can't believe the people that say like, you're a genius

and you can't believe the people who say, you're an idiot. You just do you. There's no fucking help coming. I'll be honest with you. No one's coming to help you make your dreams come true. That's up to you.

That's Kevin Smith. And this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome or welcome back. Good to be with you guys today. today very excited to share an amazing conversation with filmmaker actor comedian comic book writer author and host of eight billion podcasts the one and only kevin smith you know this guy right the darling of the emergent indie film movement in the 1990s. He's the guy behind Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, a whole battery of movies. In fact, right now, he's shooting another Jay and Silent Bob

movie. It's called Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. I think it's coming out in October. And I've been a fan of Kevin's for as far back as I can remember. I've spent countless hours enjoying his movies, probably more hours enjoying his many, many podcast conversations. And, of course, today we explore his remarkable career. But that's not really the impetus behind why I wanted to sit down with Kevin. true motivation behind it was to explore this episode that occurred in his life in February of 2018 when he suffered and survived a massive heart attack. Kevin had a 100% blockage of his anterior descending artery, most commonly known as the widowmaker. And this is the type of heart attack that most people do not survive to see another day. Kevin was lucky enough to survive it.

And I wanted to explore this experience with him, of course, what it was like, what happened, and more importantly, the lifestyle changes that he has adopted in the aftermath of this experience, an experience that is visited upon many. As I've said many times on this podcast, heart disease is America's number one killer. One out of every three people suffer a heart attack in their life. And again, most people do not survive a widowmaker heart attack. Kevin did. He's here today to share that story with us. We're going to unpack all of it in a couple of few, but first... We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time.

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starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care,

especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you.

Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. All right, Kevin Smith. So, of course, we talk about the genesis of his filmmaking career, the story behind Clerks, his rise to fame from this little, tiny, single indie film that he made by maxing out his credit cards that ultimately spawns this amazing career. We talk about his journey as an early adopter to the podcast medium and the podcast network that he now owns and runs. But mostly, this is an exploration of Kevin's remarkable transformation in the wake and the aftermath of his heart attack. We talk about his adoption of a vegan diet, losing 50 pounds, and how this experience has shaped his sense of himself. Kevin is nothing if not entertaining. He's incredibly charismatic, super honest. I really enjoyed this conversation and excited to share it with you today. So without further ado, this is me and Kevin Smith.

Super nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, sir. How are you? I'm doing good. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Oh my God, no worries, man. Any chance to talk about health. We're talking about all kinds of stuff. Something I never talked about prior to my health episode. But are you getting tired of sharing the story? No. It's incredibly empowering and inspirational. I mean, heart disease is America's number one killer. That's what they say. It's incredibly empowering and inspirational. I mean, heart disease is America's number one killer. That's what they say. It's something that impacts almost every family in one way or the other, either directly or indirectly. My old man was, well, he had heart problems.

He had a lot of problems. He was diabetic. And that was the bullet we were mostly trying to dodge in my family growing up my father and his entire side of the family were diabetics my mother we didn't know what her side of the family was because she was adopted so you know we knew what her adopted family had but but you know genetically or whatever we didn't know where she was coming from she still don't know where she came from so and as she's gotten older she's found a host of problems that like, oh, I guess that's, that's what came from her, uh, biological parents. But the, uh, the old man, yeah, he was, he was all sorts of unhealthy.

Most of his life when I was on the operating table, the doctor goes, uh, I'm gonna put a stent in you. Do you know what that is? I said, yeah, man, my mom's got a stent in her heart. And he goes, oh oh does your family have a history of heart problems i said no man my mother just has a stent in her heart and my father died of a massive heart attack age 67 so he's like we got to move fast so uh yeah it's it was weird you would think because of my father and because of my mother that i would have kept an eye toward heart health um but you know when i was a kid i was a cigarette smoker so obviously i didn't i wasn't thinking then uh and

then you know even the night i had the heart attack i wasn't thinking this is a heart attack so much so that you know i when they doctor told me in the er you're having a massive heart attack my first thought was like this guy's a fucking quack. Like, there's no way. This is not what a heart attack feels like. I'm not even in pain. I just can't. Yeah.

Our idea of what a heart attack is, is clutching your chest. And it's Fred Sanford and Sanford and son. You scream out Elizabeth and you grab your chest. And there's so many other symptoms that they don't teach you about, which are very easy to look at. I guess they maybe they don't impart them because it would make everybody panic the moment you felt nauseated you would think oh my god am i having a heart attack because nausea is part of it right heavy sweats which i sweat when i breathe so like that is a symptom who knew and stuff and breathing respiratory like that's what i had

mistook it for a respiratory issue because i couldn't quite catch my breath right and what we found out was later on that the uh lad the artery goes across the front of your heart was 100 occluded which i mean is blocked i guess with a you know a fuck ton of uh of uh cholesterol and so uh that that uh blockage right then and there that's what my man had to get through with his stent in order to open that up. And then the widowmaker, the widowmaker, the dreaded widowmaker, which sounds so metal. Sounds also painful. And that's the thing that I love to impart to people is like, I was never in pain. Couldn't quite catch my breath.

And because of that blocked LAD, they told me later on, think of like a garden hose when you fold it over and the pressure builds up and it gets fat on one end. That was pushing down on my heart, which in turn was pushing down on my lungs. And that's why I was identifying it as respiratory. And that's why people drop dead of these heart attacks left and right. Because you don't like I would not have ever called an ambulance like i felt uncomfortable but i was never like oh this hurts please get me help like it was just like i don't feel so good and then i would have fucking dropped dead if they hadn't called the

ambulance and stuff that's how those heart attacks happen i was always so surprised going up every time you read about a relative like just dropped dead it's like how's that fucking possible you gotta know heart attacks coming you gotta you gotta be able to feel it and you do they just Every time you read about a relative, like, just drop dead. It's like, how is that fucking possible? You got to know a heart attack's coming. You got to be able to feel it. And you do. They just don't really tell you what to look for. Now I know what to look for. But leading up to that, had you had spells or incidents where you hadn't had, there was no sort of outward, you know, indication.

I mean, I was always heavyset. Just being overweight. Overweight, right. And there was one now in retrospect, like, after the because the doctor my cardiologist dr ladenheim was like do you ever remember feeling the way that you felt that day he's good that's an important feeling to remember you're going to need to if you sense that in any way shape or form get to a hospital right as he said do you remember i said yeah said now that i think about it actually felt like i felt it once before and he goes when i said i was in florida um down in sarasota and it was around this time last year it was around december january or something

and we were shooting this a little horror movie called the kilroy was here and at one point my kid was down there she was in the scenes and at one point, I went and laid down the trailer. Because I was like, oh, man, I feel like it wasn't indigestion. But I felt like I was blocked in my esophagus. Like, yeah, I'm no doctor. So here I am trying to give my prognosis. But it felt like I had too much phlegm in my esophageal past that's what i thought it was and i was like oh my god i've clearly smoked too much weed created way too much mucus for myself

and so now it's uncomfortable and i would be like i just got to eat hard food like give me some crackers man that'll wash it down like in my head it was just like oh this is in your esophagus and in your throat on the way down to the stomach and shit. So I was like, I'm going to lay down for a minute, man. This feels irritating. That was the exact same feeling I'd had night of the heart attack. One other time I was playing this video game, Rave in the Redwoods, this game that is part of this video game series, Call of Duty. So they've got a mini zombie game within the game.

And so I was a character in the game. They scanned me in and Kevin Smith was a character. So me and the game creator went to Twitch and streamed us playing the game for an hour hour so right at the end of the hour of playing the game we're playing in a big tv and stuff it's a first person shooter so you're moving around real fast and whatnot he is i'm not good at that kind of shit so as i'm sitting there playing a game like three four minutes left to the entire thing the hour-long live stream suddenly i feel like really nauseated and i was like hey man where's the nearest bathroom he goes oh we're almost done i was like i know i just i gotta go like right now and he goes out the door across the hallway jumped off camera got outside

the door which was like from here to that door only about like five six feet away got into the hallway it felt like i was about to vomit and pass out at the same time went into the bathroom immediately went down on the floor like on purpose by choice um and laid down trying to get like some my bearings under me like i just felt a way that i'd never felt in my life and how long before the heart attack was that that was months a couple months before so when i got up like i threw up a little um nothing like chunky by uh chunky but it was just bile fluid and after i threw up it felt a little better so when i got out of the bathroom they're like are you okay and i was like yeah man that was fucked up like i was on the bathroom floor and stuff and uh then i threw up and now i feel better

and uh the folks there were like oh well you don't play games very often, do you? I said, no. They were like, you have motion sickness. And I was like, oh, is that right? They were like, yeah, motion sickness manifests itself as the body thinking it's being poisoned, so you threw up. So I think, you know, if you don't play games,

that can happen a lot, man. You know, we were moving pretty fast. And it all made sense. I was like, oh, my God, that's, of course. And they play video games for a living so they would know this and this is plausible now in retrospect it was probably at 90 98 percent occlusion and i was going through a heart attack like episode or whatever they call them the fucking tremors in advance of a heart attack yeah so then when i had the heart attack

that was that was big now i can associate what that was going oh that's what it felt like and now knowing what's going on in my body thanks to a medical professional i could kind of extrapolate and go like all right if i was at 100 blockage then in my heart attack maybe i was at 98 blockage that night and maybe i was at like 95 blockage the other point and that was my body trying to say like bitch something bad is going on here but i wasn't smart enough to put it together which is in turn really stupid because i come from two hard but you don't associate nausea with that that's not the traditional idea of true and but i should have been a perfectly legitimate explanation it seemed pretty good like i was like well that

makes sense but like now i i should have been i'm blaming nobody i'm not saying like this is their fault they gave me bad info i should have been more alert to the idea that like you could drop at any fucking moment your father did like you know 67 um and your mom's got heart problems up the ass which is mixed bad metaphor, but like, she's, you know, that's in your family. It's in your face. But in my head, I was like, well, if anything happens, I'm sure it's not going to happen until I'm in my sixties. Like never occurred to me in a million years. It could happen to me in my forties, which is why when it was happening, I was like, no, no. And the doctor doctor's like you're having a massive heart attack i'm like oh this guy's an idiot he's a quack but i was he was

right i was wrong so walk me walk me through the day you were taping your special yeah i was doing uh evening uh well it was called silent but deadly yeah the evening with kevin smith show where essentially normally i go do q a but we're shooting it for comedy dynamics and with an eye toward, you know, Showtime special. So the idea in those, I guess, is that you shoot two shows in a night. Right. Like one at seven, one at nine, and then you combine the two shows, make the special. So you look the same in both episodes. The audience is different.

And if they're good at their jobs, you know, the audience never really notices. The home viewing audience never really notices that, this is cut from two shows i only say that because i only shot one show that night it's a low-key way of bragging about how my entire comedy special was only shot cut from one show so in any event we shot the first show uh that day i smoked a bunch didn't do anything really strenuous or anything like that i was a huge milk milk drinker in those days, so I drank a lot of milk. I used to drink about two gallons of milk a day, probably why I had a heart attack. Probably had a lot to do with it. That is an awful lot of cow.

So I remember I talked to my wife, and she was like, do you want me to go? Because it was in Glendale. And I was like, no, I mean, you've seen me talk a fucking zillion times. Only if you want to go. And she was like, i mean you know you've seen me talk a fucking zillion times only if you want to go and she's like i'll just hang out here so drove into the to glendale you know i'd smoked a bunch when i got there i smoked more then we did the show everything went off without a hitch then i got off stage and i chit-chatted with like some people over there, the lady from Showtime, uh, talked to Brian who was directing it and stuff. He was like, that's great.

He's going, we can almost cut the whole thing from that one too bad. We got to do a second show. I was like, no, I got a whole two hours worth of different shit. I'm ready to go. So I went into the green room and I, there was milk there in a glass bottle in ice. So I cracked it open, took a big thing of milk big drink and then i was suddenly fairly nauseated my first thought was like oh somebody fucking pissed in the milk or something like the milk's been fucked with like the you know it's got to be bad milk i think i've just had some bad milk so i felt weird and i asked

jordan who runs our company and emily who does my hair makeup i was like hey man can i have the room like because when i'm sick i don't want to be around people i just want to go off and fucking die like an animal so i was like can i have the room i don't feel that well and they were like yeah totally and they stepped out and i laid down on the floor. Always a key sign, kids. If you're laying down on the floor in public, get a doctor. So there I am. I'm laying down on the floor. I feel nauseated. I feel hot.

And I throw up bile. And then I feel a little better. Then Emily comes in and she's like, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, can you turn on the hair dryer and just dry me off? Like I'm sweating profusely and stuff. So she's like, yeah, totally. So she sits me in the chair, puts the hair dryer on me. And as she's drying my hair, she feels my neck and she goes,

this is going to sound creepy, but I feel your neck all the time while I'm doing your hair. Never felt this before. You're freezing cold on your neck. You sure you're maybe something we should look into? was like yeah i don't feel great i was like i'm gonna i need a couch somebody find a couch this is at the theater the alex theater in glendale so uh jordan found a couch and i was like all right i'm just gonna lay down here for a while man which is like you know now again knowing what happened like that's how fucking people die

you know i'm like i'm just gonna lay down i don't feel good i'm gonna lay down and you know meanwhile my heart was fucking attacking me or you know fair enough i had attacked it most of my life with all the shit i ate so the heart was like turnabout's fair fair play so i'm laying on this couch and i can't get comfortable flip around and stuff which is weird because i could fall asleep the drop of a hat so then there's a chair there so i went to the chair and sat in it and i put my arms above my head to facilitate breathing because i couldn't quite catch my breath i was like but no like tightness in your chest no nothing no arm no you know they tell you like your left arm your right arm goes numb uh it's going to feel like an elephant sitting on your chest none of that shit just couldn't quite like catch my breath

this is a normal breath up to the top then i could only go and i couldn't ring the bell i couldn't like get it all the way up to the top so i put my hands above my head i was raising them up like this like you know like a like a football referee try facilitate breathing and so i'm sitting in the chair and jordan kind of creeps in around the corner she goes you all right i was like i feel really fucked up i've never felt like this before in my life i was like maybe i should see a doctor um she's like well we canceled the second show and i was like why would you cancel the second show and she was like i've never seen you be sick before this is really weird so called off the second show i was like all right well if the show's called off and i felt okay because brian said he could cut everything out of one so i was like all right we're covered there

i was like if the show's called called off maybe i should go see a doctor right now she goes sunday night there are no doctors open so i called an ambulance and i was like why the fuck would you call an ambulance man oh my god this is embarrassing like they're gonna show up they're gonna tell me i smoked way too much weed and stuff like don't why would you do that she's like better safe than sorry i didn't know what to do so i'm sitting there in the chair with my arms up and all of a sudden like and when you call the ambulance fire department comes as well so six brawny ass fire firefighters come in the room. And there I am sitting there in a chair with my arms up. One of them young enough to be like, oh, I fucking know who this guy is.

And they're looking at me like, why is Silent Bob celebrating a touchdown? And I was like, hey. And they were like, you all right? I said, yeah, I just, I can't quite catch my breath. Two paramedics come in, a guy and a girl, the Bobsy twins. And the guy goes, hi, what's your name? I said,ith he goes mr smith how you feeling mr smith's my father and he goes oh i've heard that joke before he goes uh what's going on i said i can't quite catch my breath he goes all right let's see what's going on here i'm gonna get a blood pressure cuff on you put a cuff

on me starts pumping it and then the lady's got this what looks like a fishing tackle box and she opens it up it's got leads and wires in it and stuff all of a sudden she grabs my fucking hockey jersey yanks it up and every one of my titties and guts falls out i'm like whoa and she's like what what's the matter i yank it right back down i said don't do that there's a bunch of people around here she's like i gotta get these wires on you and i was like well i'll hold my shirt out you just reach under it and use my nipples as guide posts like but don't lift my shirt up and she looks at the other guy she's like we ain't got time for this and the guy goes uh uh mr smith i need you to do me a favor open

your mouth and open my mouth he's like lift your tongue i did he's gonna put something in it it's okay and he sprayed something under my tongue and they said close your mouth and i did and i remember thinking like this is so fucking weird your whole life your parents train you like if a stranger says to you open your mouth and put something in it you fucking say no but because dude's wearing a uniform i was like just totally let him do whatever he wanted so the guy goes uh he looks at the lady's fishing tackle box which is now wires attached to my chest and i didn't think anything of it right like they're moving fast they at paramedics and stuff i'd seen paramedics work before but i'd never been at the receiving end of them so the guy goes you

know what we're gonna take you for a ride to the hospital and i was like oh my god please don't do that this is embarrassing i honestly just smoked way too much weed today he goes yeah that could be the case he's gone but we're so close better safe than sorry man we're gonna take you to the hospital you ever been to the hospital before i was like no he goes oh you're gonna love it is it really he goes yeah man we're gonna take you in an ambulance you ever been in an ambulance i said no he goes we'll even ring the siren i was like all right let's fucking do it so he put me in this chair that becomes a bed that becomes a gurney right it's like a transformer but in order to get me there that's what a fireman come into it because i go to get up and like whoa you stay right there and they

bring the six firemen over and they're like all right pick them up dudes put their hands under me and six fucking brawny ass firemen lift me to the ground it was most fun i had like in the last year because nobody ever tries to pick my ass up like it was fun i was like we they put me in the chair and shit got me upstairs as i was being wheeled out there's a bunch of people lined up for the next show and i guess they'd been informed that i was not having a second show because i was suffering from food poisoning somebody had heard that i threw up so like oh it must be food poisoning so that's what they told everybody he can't do the second show he's got food poisoning and as i'm leaving there's somebody you know a bunch of people outside they're all

clapping like way to go kev and then there was one guy who's making the universal face for sticking his finger down his throat you know the vomiting face but i didn't know that they were told that i puked and i wasn't honestly thinking about that i was so like what the fuck i'm in an ambulance now i saw a dude pointing his finger in his mouth and i was like is this fucking man telling me suck his dick as i'm being put in an ambulance like where is the decency and shit like that you're being wheeled out in front of all your fans totally and i was like waving to him and stuff like the queen they put me in an ambulance i go to uh glendale adventist and that wasn't the name of the hospital on the call sheet. Since we were

shooting, we were in production. There's a call sheet for every production. The call sheet has a bunch of useful information on it, including where to go in case of a medical emergency. This is the hospital we've designated as the production hospital. The ambulance didn't take me there. They took me to Glendale Adventist, which is a little further away.

But because the medics knew what was happening, and they knew that Glendale adventist was a fantastic cardiac hospital so i get there they bring me into the er um that's where i meet dr ladenheim mark ladenheim guy saves my life comes in he's like hi how you doing i said i'm good i just can't catch my breath he goes well how's your pain you know on a level of zero to ten what kind kind of pain are you in? I was like, negative three. And he goes, oh, well, then you're doing this all wrong. I said, what do you mean? He goes, if you're having a massive heart attack,

you're supposed to be in pain. I said, I'm having a massive heart attack? He goes, you sure are right now. You don't know that? I was like, no, nobody said anything. It was the first time he was communicated to me in the emergency room where I was like, what the? And he goes, so we're going to move fast

because what I think it is, we got to get there as quickly as possible. So I'll see you upstairs. And he leaves and so we're going to move fast because what I think it is, we got to get there as quickly as possible. So I'll see you upstairs. And he leaves and another guy comes in with a bucket and a razor. And he goes, okay, in order for the doctor to get up to your heart, we got to go through your groin. So I'm going to need to shave your groin. So can you take off your jorts? And so I take off my jean shorts and then I leave my underwear on because because i'm like i take my underwear off in the

emergency room dick out in the emergency room like i'm seeing i've been in the emergency room before with other people and it's a mess man once you're done looking at the person you're there with once they're stabilized or whatever the fuck once you look around you're like oh my god people in various states of undress and whatnot can't help it's emergency room so i'm sitting there going i fucking take my underwear off like that forget it like all i need is one person with a fucking cell phone camera be like silent bob's dick and i'm ruined for life so i'd say uh the guy goes you gotta take your underwear off and i was like uh why and he goes because i gotta shave your groin and i said well what's the groin to you and he goes it's where your leg meets your body what are you talking about i was like all

right well if that's the case i'll pull my underwear to the side. And you just get in there and do virgin smoothie or landing strip. You're tearing on death and you're negotiating over like. Because I was ashamed of my dick. Like I was got by. He goes, what are you doing? What are you talking? I said, look, man, I got a small dick.

I got body shame issues and shit, obviously. And that man just told me I had a heart attack. And if you make me take off my underwear in front of all these people i will have a second heart attack and that's going to be on you man so let's do this and he goes fine just pull him over so pull my underwear over and he shaves both sides of the groin that battle i it was i think they were just like how amusing well he's gonna die anyway let's go so they got me upstairs and the first thing uh dr laden i'm seven they brought me in he goes why is he still wearing his underwear and the guy who pushed me and goes he's got a story he's got body shame issues and i said yeah doc my dick is real small

and the doctor goes we ain't got time for this and he yanks my fucking underwear off my body like i'm a heroine in a 70s porn movie and stuff so i was trying to fight to keep my hockey jersey on because hockey jersey is like a moo moo and it covers everything and stuff so i was like if i can keep my jersey i'll cover my dick at least even if he's going up my groin he'll need to see my dick none of these people need to see my dick so i'm like uh he's like take that shirt off him and i go no i need that man this is my lucky hockey jersey like you know even though i'm drugged i didn't know this i was drugged at this point. They started feeding me fentanyl. They have to because they're going to fucking puncture your body and your groin, cut a hole into you and then feed a fucking tube up your femoral artery.

So naturally they don't want you feeling anything. So the moment they start this shit, I'd be like, fuck you. So they drug you with fentanyl. I didn't know this. So I think I'm being keen and clever and shit, like coming up with a lie about having to wear my fucking hockey jersey and shit because it's my lucky hockey jersey. And really, I was drugged. And I didn't know that till after I was coming out of the operating room.

My wife was just like, are you OK? And I said, you know what? If that's a heart attack, man, I'll take fucking five more. That was easy, man. And she goes, you must be on drugs. I was like, no, they didn't give me any drugs whatsoever. I was sober that whole time. And she said the doctor was behind me. And he goes goes he's on a lot of fentanyl like right now

so they're pumping me full fentanyl and even though i was drugged i was like i gotta keep this jersey on it's my lucky hockey jersey and the doctor's like if it's so lucky why are you having a heart attack get that off and they took off all my clothes and i was laying there i was like you have your will of me that was the. That was I was more scared of than the heart attack was being completely naked. Yeah, that vulnerability. Oh, my God. Your image issue is so strong that literally on the operating table. I'm willing to die for it at that point.

And these cats are looking at me like, what are you fucking dumb or something? And I don't obviously don't understand how in jeopardy I i truly was i now have long since like i've met many of course dr mark explained it later on but like i went to get a a uh check up for um the movie we're about to make we're gonna make jane silent bob reboot this year and so before you make a movie since uh i'm the writer and i'm one of the stars and the director and shit like that i'm a key man they make you go in and get top to bottom you're looked at they got insured a movie and you're the one they're insuring so i went in and saw dr paula who i see for like every movie and stuff like that and uh you know she was on me as well she's like is what's all this i heard about

the hard i said yeah i had a widow maker a couple months back but it worked out i lost a bunch of weight and stuff and she goes you don't know how lucky you are i said i i know i've heard it very very lucky she goes no you have no idea how lucky you are she's like when i was an internist i was in surgery with another doctors in his 40s we had three other doctors in the room working on this patient it's going so we're in a hospital room lots of doctors lead surgeon drops to the ground has a massive widow make a heart attack just like you and i was like and whoa and she goes well if you're gonna have a heart attack best place to have it is in an operating room surrounded by doctors i was like

that's right so you saved him she goes nope couldn't it's gone that widow maker she's going there's just no telling she's like it's not even 50-50. As you heard, she's like, it's 80-20. Most people just go. And if you're a male in your 40s, you're very susceptible to this. She's going, so we couldn't save that guy. The fact that you walked away from this, you have no idea and stuff. I was like, well, you know, they gave me the stent. And she goes, it goes beyond that. It's beyond just like the occluded, like LAD and the stent.

She's going like, for some reason reason we don't know why but male heart becomes susceptible to this particular type of heart attack throughout the whole corridor you're 40 she's like you almost got out you know because i was 47 and uh she's gone but it happens you gotta look out for it well maybe nobody tells us that yeah there maybe there's something to that uh hockey jersey you know what i'm saying it was lucky who knew so he went up uh he was sitting there he punctured into my groin fed the tube up he was chit-chatting with me the whole time i was singing the whole time because i was like fucking hyped hopped up on fentanyl i had no idea so i was singing the theme song to the grassy junior high which is whatever it takes

i know i can make it through grassy the next generation very hopeful song so uh he goes all right i'm there and yes it's what i think it is he goes you got 100 occlusion or lad i said what is that he goes you're the big artery goes right around the front of your heart biggest important artery is all blocked with cholesterol can't get any blood through man so we're gonna have to put a stent in there so uh he fucking said like you know do you know he goes you're a comic book guy i said yeah and he goes they call this heart attack the widow maker and i said oh really and he goes yeah this is all while right before he heads back into my surgery he goes yeah man because in 80 of the cases of 100 occlusion like you got now the patient always

dies but you're going to be in the 20 because i'm great at my job and they disappeared into my crotch and like made magic and stuff so i sat there thinking about like oh shit this is it this is the closest i've ever come as far as i know maybe i'll come closer but i never knew nobody ever said like fucking you got a 20 chance of living right now so those are the lowest odds i ever had and i was like hey man this could be it this is if this dude isn't a good at his job you're gonna shuffle loose the mortal coil so start thinking you spent your whole life analyzing yourself with your head up your own ass wondering about you trying to figure out who you are and who you are like what do you think now like here it is this is the big moment the moment you've been

terrified your whole fucking life what do you what's? Like, here it is. This is the big moment. The moment you've been terrified your whole fucking life. What's going through your mind? So I was raised Catholic and I was an altar boy and stuff. And I said, well, maybe I should pray. And then I was like, you know what? That ain't going to work because I'm sure I'd pray. And then the Lord would be like, you made dogma. Go fuck yourself.

And so I wouldn't get any help there. So I didn't. Stop from that God. Yes. I didn't scoff law i wasn't some scoff law turning to god as a last resort i said why would i presume upon the wonderful fictional friendship like that so i just started thinking about my life in general and i thought about my parents what an amazing job they did raising me as a kid like you know i was the third in the line

they didn't know what they were fucking doing they had no money whatsoever and somehow it worked out like and they put me on this weird journey that resulted in me like having a very cool job for many many years and like uh finding a wife and getting married having a kid of my own like having a family and stuff like i thought about my friends my brothers and sister my brother and sister all my friends jason you know everybody that like put me where i am or helped me get there as part of my life and stuff and i was i don't know there was this odd sense of calm instead of being like oh god i'm gonna miss this or i'm fucking mad at the world for dying and shit my big takeaway was this is okay it felt like graduation day. Honestly, for me, it felt like an amazing life. I don't even know if it was that so many things that there's definitely a

sense of like satisfaction. Like, all right, I've done, I've checked a lot of boxes or whatever. And I'm sure this story would be different if I was like, so there I was getting eaten by a fucking shark or, you know,

there I was getting, uh, uh, the corn and draught drawn and quartered by an angry mob i'm sure i would have a different perspective of death's tour but there i was hopped up on fentanyl in an operating table and i was filled with a sense of calm i was filled with like well this is this makes sense like it felt like high school like when i graduated high school i was like well

this is sad because now this part of your life is over but this is the journey like this makes sense this is an ending and now you'd start something else so i wasn't scared or or nervous or you know like yeah save me doc i did say to him at one point doc if you can save my life he goes i'll try um but i was never like panicky and i thought i chalked that up to being like stoned on weed because i was like smoked so much weed that well the fentanyl too that really helped that really kept me calm it took the fear edge off i was like nah this is fine i'll just hang here in the netherworld um it was it was weird a weird sense of completion like like nah this is fine i'll just hang here in the nether world um it was it was weird a weird sense of completion like oh yeah this is what you're supposed to do like you know

we spend so much of our lives terrified of that moment of like letting go of like this it all ends and we don't know what happens over there and you know what if it's a yowling fucking chasm of fucking the bodiless souls that just eat you and tear you apart in the darkness or what if it's heaven like nobody knows so as i sat there all of a sudden i was filled with a sense of calm of like no this makes sense this was supposed to happen like i thought about there's a public enemy song he got game from like 1998 and at the end uh flavor flav is doing what flavor flav does and he talks through the end of the song and stuff. And he says, one of the lines is fairly profound. He says, look inside yourself for peace,

give thanks, live life, and release. And it felt like, oh, that makes sense now. This is the release point. Like, holding on to it, it's not going to help. Just let it go. You're done. And yeah, it's early. 47 is young, but just let it go you're done and yeah it's early 47 is young but like fuck you've done a lot so if this is the end of the party don't be the asshole who's like you know hey man let's go out for pizza at 4 a.m and shit just fucking go home like you did it

but in fairness you've lived a life of fewer regrets compared to the average human like you've turned over a lot of stones you've lived a life that you've wanted to live and well the turning over of stones doesn't always lead to satisfaction it leads to a lot of regret as well so you know it's it's i don't ultimately have regret about the things that I do or, you know, or the path that I've taken because it always leads you to the next thing and whatnot. But there's definitely moments of like, I thought I wanted this so bad. And then life shows you that maybe you didn't want this at all. But in moments like that, I try to honor the kid that started the journey. the kid that started the journey like because it's never me who's paying the price or receiving the accolades right like it's it's me it's this current version of me not the heroic kid who was like i'm gonna try to do something that i've never done before i'm gonna try to make a movie i'm living on that kid's coattails rest of my fucking life i personally have never had to do anything that kid fucking kicked open the doors and started me rolling so i always try to honor that kid even as far removed as i am from that kid at this moment

in time and so i always ask myself or say to myself two things after every triumph or failure but normally you need to say this more in times of quote-unquote failure and to be honest i don't believe it's real failure failure is not doing the thing but in moments where it's like this didn't succeed the way i wanted to the two things i say to myself are just like well you wanted this like oh my god did you want this you changed everything to make this happen you made people uncomfortable like they were comfortable in their own lives and you had them leave and come join you in another place to fucking make pretend and stuff you changed the fucking universe to make this happen you went out and found a fucking ungodly amount of money to

make pretend and now you're gonna sit here and say that like maybe you didn't oh you fucking wanted this you better fucking enjoy it motherfucker enjoy it and never sell out on it and then the other thing i always tell myself is like what what was the alternative? Like, seriously, it seems like right now, like you're regretting this, but what was the alternative? If you didn't do this, you would sick. You sit there and it would eat you up inside like a fucking cancer. You'd be sick over the fact that like, I wonder if I should have. I wonder if I could have.

I want to do that thing and shit like that. And then to not honor it when you've got the ability to follow through and you've got the means to do so. Like, you know how to make your dreams come true and once you once you see that you can't ever be like no that's impossible you know how to do the impossible so fuck you like there was no alternative right so the regrets the regrets aren't from not taking advantage of the opportunities that came your way that was one of the only making them better or something exactly like when i sat there on the table i was i had no regrets about passing out of this world i was like

you know what fucking you did it like you're getting out of here man and fucking you're graduating well done and shit but the one kind of regret that i had was i was laying there going like man if i die tonight the last movie I made was Yoga Hosers. And I took a lot of shit for that movie. So I was like, if I could just make it to one more movie, if I can make Jane Silent Bob reboot, you know, then at least that would make sense to end on that movie. Right. So that's why I'm like, I got to get to that movie as quickly as possible. But did it shuffle the deck on your sense of priorities at all?

Or did you feel like I got that in check? You would think that it was like now my eyes are open there was no bill murray at the end of scrooge type moment because i think i live my life like bill murray at the end of scrooged like you know i'm constantly in a state of revelation and constantly sharing that revelation with with the world uh some people like me in media podcasts making movies whatever the movies, whatever the fuck, it's not enough for us to experience something like most people, most people live their lives and experience it. And they're fucking happy doing that.

Happy having those experiences. Maybe they share them with some friends and shit like that. But then there's assholes like me. They're like, Oh, I have to tell you the experience that I have. The world needs to know because we think the world gives a fuck what we say or blah, blah, blah. So I've always kind of lived that guy's life, like the life of like, let me tell you what I learned and shit like that. And because of that, there's really no like sense of like, you know, Scrooge on Christmas morning going, go get me a goose, boy. Like I've seen three ghosts and now i

get it i always got it yeah um and not not that like i get it and others don't i've always gotten what i wanted to get out of life so being that close to death it wasn't like fuck man now you got to change everything if anything it just made me go like thank god i did as much shit as i did because apparently i'm not going to live a very long life so now if anything it just makes me go like all right we gotta do is more we gotta do more. And I've always done as much as humanly fucking possible. It used to be just the movies. Like I'm gonna make movies. I'm a filmmaker. And then that got kind of not boring, but just like, it happens every two years. Like, what do I do with all this fucking downtime? And that's where like everything else came in, like the comic books or

standing on stage and talking or the podcasts or later on the tv show all was an effort to like fill that time because i realized early on like this is it the great and secret show ends and then you fucking die do as much as you can before the fucking curtain falls so when i was laying on that table and thinking like this is it i was filled with a sense of like well i'm done i've finished i've done a lot of stuff live you know give thanks live life and release and then when i was spared and suddenly i'm here i I'm like, all right, let's just triple the output because I get it now. It was what I always suspected.

No good way out of this life. And I was at the door of probably the best way out of this life. I was hopped up on fucking fentanyl singing to grassy with no fucking regrets in my life. You know, if I had gone out fuck that would have been wonderful but i didn't so now i just want to triple the output because i realized there's we're just the smartest fucking bears on the planet that's it you know at the end of the day it's like this is we look around at other species and like you know we feel like we are fucking in control like we are the masters and we are certainly heads and shoulders above all these other animals like

you know i was raised in the catholic church and there was never any sort of like well yeah we love all life but we eat lambs and even though there's a picture of jesus holding the lamb he probably ate it later on because we've got a very complicated relationship with animals and shit like that and really what i realized was we're just we're just the clever ones we're the only the only difference between us and the animal kingdom is we know how to tell a story and worse than that we know how to buy into a story case in point you got a dog try to explain the concept of a 20 bill to my doc and shecky yeah you know maybe she'll try to bite at it and shit like that but like that's a story we agree on here's money i'm gonna give you this piece of paper and that says that i have wealth and that

some of that wealth is now yours and i'm exchanging it for goods and services it's a fucking story like a very delicate story that like you know currently the reality we live in we're seeing the the the very threads of that reality tugged at being tested yeah but the the foundations of civilization are built on these agreed upon myths stories social contract yeah it's fundamentally an illusion and that's that's what i got out all this i was like well it's all fundamentally illusion and there's really no sense to it and it's only through luck and evolution and timing that your species wound up fucking on top with the ability to be like romeo romeo where far out thou romeo just lean in like make pretend for your entire fucking life you know it occurs to me every once in a while like should i be a more serious person and should i understand politics should i look into government should i you know just anything that like my serious peers and people that i went to school

with or you know people who are now adults and like pursuing careers they went after like the noble work and the real work and shit like that the shit you read about in books when you were in school this one's a doctor this one's a lawyer this one's this and shit and i chose the thing that you know was like the grasshopper and the. And I chose the thing that, you know, it was like the grasshopper and the ant story. I chose grasshopper. I'm like, oh my God, I'm a fucking further away all my days and shit.

Here's my fiddle. I'm gonna go nuts. I'm gonna try to entertain you and myself and shit. And when I was faced with my ultimate demise and like my mortality, I didn't walk away from that going, well, now, now I understand. Like it just made it more clear,, keep playing right till the end.

There's no, as far as I know, it's just us. And that's it. And this story that we keep telling ourselves. And the story gets more and more complicated as centuries go on and stuff. But so far, so good. We're the biggest scam artists on the planet the human race that's a cynical way to look at it it's a positive way it hasn't injected in you any kind of sense of greater you know spiritual awareness or anything like that none whatsoever no no in fact probably

not even i would never say that oh my god i'm insanely hopeful i'm a very positive person i hope that comes across we're here we're doing our thing i mean i was raised on a pack of lies unfortunately and so that fucks you up for childhood throughout your adulthood as well like and i'm not blaming the catholic church i'm blaming my parents but you got to understand how twisted my insides are for years i was told there was a santa claus and i was like yeah of course that makes sense a stranger will bring his presence he's a friend of god's because I was also Catholic. And then one day my parents were like, Santa's not real. We've just been saying that to you for years because that's what you do with kids.

And I'm sorry we were part of that. But yeah, it's time to let that go. What about God? Well, God's very real. Was that traumatic for you? No, no, it wasn't. It wasn't like I'm losing Santa. But it was confusing for me because I got to keep God.

Lost Santa. They were like, Santa's not real. confusing for me because I got to keep God. Lost Santa. They were like, Santa's not real. Don't be ridiculous. God? No, that's real. And, you know, you sit there going like, well, I have zero proof of God. Just like I have zero proof of Santa Claus. Like, in fact, there are more renderings of Santa Claus.

If you want to look for an image, there's a bunch out there and stuff. But I was expected to hold on to God. And I did up until the time I made Dogmen. Then I was like, you know, I met George Carlin and george carlin was like you believe all this stuff and i was like of course you're raised catholic don't you and he goes no i'm smarter than that and that's when i started thinking so it was carlin that turned you carlin and scott mosher and not turned me but just kind of taught me to use a different organ you know use use my brain differently um scott mosher too years of doing smodcast and knowing him he's a guy produced all my movies and stuff um he just made the grinch movie that's in

theaters now huge um scott was always so baffled by my blind faith in you know there's something after this of course there is and he was like why do you think that i was like because like what would we why would we bother doing all this like what was but there must i must be going somewhere after this there must be some reward good or bad there's no point in living all this life and then just dying and sitting in the earth like you think and he goes why because that's what we are he's gone like yeah i understand you believe in something but i think we're computers i think once a computer spins down that's what we are. He's going like, yeah, I understand you believe in something, but I think we're computers. And I think once a computer spins down, that's it. No computer lasts forever, man.

Eventually it just dies. And all that information that's on that laptop just fucking dies with it. Unless you download it somewhere. He's going, the trick is we should learn to download our, our, you know, intelligence. So that, that way you could live on. He's going, but like, you know, eternal life. I don't buy that. And he was never shitty about it.

Never gone like you're an idiot for believing this, but Scott, one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. And if Scott couldn't really make the leap of faith, I was sitting there going, maybe there's no leap to make. So, you know, I started thinking about it more and more and arrived at my own conclusions about, Oh, you know, maybe dogma was you trying to work out the last bit of something that just can't possibly make sense in the light of day and something that like as a grown up, you can't really put your head around in the same way. That's the Lord calling right now.

He's going to ring you up and correct you a little bit. I wonder if there's a relationship between. And also, sorry, before we go further, I don't want anyone to think that I'm taking their faith away from him. I just want you to know, I wish I was still you. I wish I could still have the faith that I had as a kid or even up into my mid twenties and stuff. When I meet people of faith, I'm always way into it.

Like, oh my God, good for you. I just, I wish, I wish I had still had that and i'm not saying i just saw something you people didn't and stuff unfortunately i just arrived at a different conclusion i look at it a little bit differently i mean i think the more that we learn about science and the crazier it gets the more i think there's opportunity for for faith and something that we can't understand in the same way that shecky can't understand that 20 bill right why do we think we are so smart like you said scott's you know smart one of the smartest guys you know totally but maybe our brains just aren't big enough to comprehend what's actually right in front of us um do you have what would that be though just out

of curiosity well something beyond our ability to comprehend oh i'm but i'm i'm all for that but that's not what the catholic church asks me to say about catholicism and that's not what any faith asks me to say oh look i'm i'm a i'm hopeful and i'm into the beyond an undefined spiritual faith look something bigger than we can possibly someone has information that i don't and they're like look here's what you're missing i'm more than happy to listen to it and if what their truth is is like none of these people understand it because here's the real truth like grant morrison was on the podcast once and told me what he saw when he like dropped acid or whatever it was and kind of went to the top of the ziggurat and like he had

his consciousness kind of exploded and i was like that sounds awesome if that's nobody ever presented that as a possibility like you got your catholicism you got your judaism you got your hinduism and then you got this fucking crazy shit where somebody tells you that you're just a small cog in the universe of higher consciousness i'm all for that but that was the first time that was ever presented to me so if you're ready to present me with like here's another option i'm so open-minded to that but the moment you start talking about god is this i don't know what it is what it looks like no i'm not saying that at all right i'm saying there's an opportunity for for awe and wonder

out there oh i believe you i'm i live this i think you don't need faith to live in awe and wonder and i say that from a guy who's lived both sides of the coin um there's awe and wonder and everything you look at in nature you don't need god in your life to see that do you feel like post-heart attack you have a greater sense or appreciation of that no no yeah you've kind of gone on record and said look i didn't have a huge epiphany i mean you've made giant changes in in how you live that was the big epiphany was like you're being an asshole living this way right um but spiritually i've always been pretty pretty like fulfilled and and living it all out and examining it my head and my heart not my physical heart my spiritual heart i i spent a lot of time on in this life yeah my body not so much no and that was the real wake-up call we're going to talk

about that in a minute but first i i wonder whether there's a relationship or a connection between your experience in the you know growing up catholic and your like love for an appreciation for the myths that you find in pop culture oh god comic books and those archetypal figures and stories that just connect with us so deeply as humans. I, like everybody else, love a morality tale. The Bible is chock-a-block full of some of the greatest morality tales ever written. And if you're remotely religious, you've heard of all these great paradigms of faith and stuff like that.

However, the older I got, then i was introduced to comic books and you know i was drawn to those stories and of course they're colorful and they're programmed for kids you know they're written for you in that era so naturally it makes sense but it wasn't until i got a little older that i realized there's a correlation between these two there's a parallel i love a good morality story uh it just so happens that Marvel and DC told way more entertaining versions in their funny books than the Bible did in it. So I have nothing but respect for anybody that can weave a tale about how doing the right thing is the better choice, especially in a world where doing the wrong thing is the easier choice or in the case of the comic books the more colorful powerful um choice so yeah those things are definitely combined definitely related in my mind it's interesting how your career has sort of um blossomed like hand in hand like on a parallel track with

culture at large embracing you know this format like your your career starting at that very special moment where independent film was blowing up you happen to take a chance and be there at the right opportunity for that and just being true to who you are and and preaching your love for this you know kind of pop culture to have culture then embrace that in a way that fit you like a glove and allowed you to be who you are. I'm like everybody on the internet. Essentially, that's what it is. I got to be that guy first. And then if people had waited two minutes, the internet was going to happen.

And there would be a generation of me of people who are like you jumped on it from the get-go i mean i remember i mean i have to thank you for inspiring me to you know even go on this journey because i was a super early adopter of podcasts and i'd seen your movies and i was an entertainment lawyer i was at sunday like i've been at sundance a million times like i followed your clerk story from the get-go. I worked with Ed Burns on looking for Kitty. Like I'm part of that independent world and I appreciate, you know, what you were able to create and craft out of that. Um, but then I had my own like kind of personal transformation and I started training for these crazy ultra endurance races and i would spend like eight hours training by myself like out on a bike and i'm like i can't listen to music or i need

something to entertain me and i got into podcast 2007 like right at the beginning that was when me and mosher started yeah you guys were from the get-go the ogs february 2007 the people who were there before us just for context um leo laporte right did this week in tech um i mean bill maher had a when did real-time podcast started after us after you yeah corolla was on the radio adam had a radio show got canceled and then it got canceled and then like the next day or the week after they started the adam carolla podcast so we were already podcasting carolla and a handful like it was a little bit longer before rogan started um it was like hobbyists yeah in these little hardwick was another one they were doing that's

right that's right but that was but those guys came in i mean this is not fucking bragging but like like i remember those you those dudes joining and being like, Oh, they have a personality to do it. Yeah. Well, I mean, unless you count like the father, the pod father himself is Adam Curry. Oddly enough. That's right. The guy from MTV.

I totally forgot. Who did it before anybody else and stuff. But like, but it was, it was, I mean, you had to be committed to be a listener because you had to download it on your desktop. You had to bounce it to an iPod. Like, it was a whole thing, right? So, you had to get your, okay, here are the ones I want to listen to. I'm going to be on the bike for however many hours.

I'm going to need this much listening time. And I'd be like, I got, you know, I got Smog Cat. I got four episodes of Smog Cat, whatever, you know. And so, I was listening from the very, very beginning. Thank you. And I thought, like, I knew you from the movies, but I didn't know you outside of that. And I fell in love with your voice and your authenticity and your honesty and just being who you are. And I found that to be very inspiring. And it would be many years later until I started this thing. But I took a lot of inspiration and spent many hours listening

to you for a long time. That means the world man thank you and you're incredibly you're an incredibly gifted talented artist but as a personality just you being you is my favorite kevin smith mine too my thank you for that yeah mine too that was the i didn't realize that was the aim in the beginning i I was like, I want to be a filmmaker. I want to make films and stuff that seemed to be the aim. And once that happened, I was like right on happily ever after. And I was young and stuff, but then over time, and it took a while,

like 10 years or something. Like, I realized it's way more interesting if like you're the art project. If like, if you take your life, like don't identify as an artist, be the art. Like now you're doing this. Now you're doing that. Like just spin as many plates as possible.

Do all the shit you dream about. Like if somebody is doing something that interests you, try it. Even if like, you know know you've never done it before especially considering i'd never made a film before we did and we just got lucky luck and timing it worked out and shit so when podcasting came along i was actually better suited for that like to just sit around and talk so i was like oh my god this is like a commentary track on a laser disc but there's no movie let Let's do this. This is fantastic. So I found myself through podcasting and really got to put the voice out there. Like, you know, the evening with Kevin Smith specials were one way to kind of be like,

hi, this is who I am beyond the work. But the podcast allowed me to like go deep and and also like share my friends that was the bigger thing yeah like i got to put a shine a light on people that i thought were impressive like you know you've heard from me for years now hear from fucking jason muse himself not the character jay but him or scott mosher or ralph carmen and mark bernard and andy mckelvey's like being able to highlight people who i'm like i think these people are smart and funny right that was part of what i loved about podcasting you know you know you got to remember part of it too came from at that point i was doing a lot of

q a's uh by myself and that's how you do q a and you go up there and just answer questions so i do that all over the country, always by myself. And there was a part of me that was like, not lonely, but I'm like, man, I wish I had like, you know, I wish I was the Smothers Brothers. Like, I wish I had there was someone else. I'm always looking for like a best friend or a partner in crime. And so suddenly the idea of doing podcasts were like, oh, I can go on stage with somebody and have a conversation. Like, this could be fun, too. So that allows you to show even more of who you are.

And if you listen to the podcast, it's like weird. You get a bunch of different versions of me. Smodcast is probably where you get the most authentic version of me or unfiltered. Jay and Bob get old. I'm kind of his guide. I'm the guy keeping it on rails and stuff but that's definitely more about jason hollywood babylon i play the idiot second banana right to ralph so like i instantly go into the the kind of submissive role how many shows do you have now

uh fat man beyond with mark bernard and that one is like that that's actually pretty close to real kevin smith too because that's just me fanning out on things i like that podcast because it's like same reason i like hollywood babylon i get to talk about anything but me and so you that's still even though you're not talking about you reveals a lot about who you are like because of the fat man uh fat man on batman which became fat man beyond podcast like i got i was able to embrace how fucking you know weepy and emotional i am like you know because now i just you know i i'm a guy so you're expected to be stoic and shit or at least i was and then uh i started like just crying over comic books and comic book movies and like putting that out there

in the world you'd hear me on the podcast and shit and sometimes I like shot myself watching Flash and crying which led to me getting a job on Flash as well so like I learned to wear my emotions on my sleeve because the audience was okay with that like anytime

I push the edge a little bit outside the movies in a podcast and let them know a little bit more about who I was, they didn't judge me. They weren't shitty. Like, don't fucking cry over Flash. I didn't fucking tune in to listen to this bitch shit or whatever. Fuck people being like, I know how you feel, man. That shit makes me fucking emotional, too.

And suddenly you get to be you even more publicly. So I'm with you. Of all the Kevin Smiths, Ivin smith the best like the the one that's like oh that's who he is yeah it's cool and i think it's allowed you i mean being somebody who was just there from the very beginning um you were at the vanguard like the forefront of developing your own audience like at what point did you realize like hey i don't have to you know make huge movies that appeal to everybody like i've got these people they love me i'm going to take care of them and like i'm good it never occurred to me to make huge movies at all so it

never occurred to me that i didn't have to make well you had that cop-out experience yeah there's that oh heavens and that was also a podcast where you talked about that leading up to it and when it was happening. 2009 or something like that. Did it sound like a car wreck, slowly evolving car wreck? A little bit, but there was definitely tension between you and Bruce Willis. I mean, that's all I remember vaguely. Wasn't the original name for that movie like Two Dicks? A Couple of Dicks.

Yeah, right. It was a great title. And the only movie you did that you didn't write. Yeah, of all the flicks I've done, yeah. That was the only one you didn't write uh yeah of all the flicks i've done yeah that was the only one i didn't write and it was uh i mean now i do that with supergirl and flash episodes but that was like you know oh my gosh i'd never done it before i'd done it once prior to cop out i directed a pilot for a tv show called reaper but i wound up doing so much like say this say this that that felt more like me cop out was definitely like somebody else's script me

going let me see if i could steven soderbergh this shit and direct you tried you know i didn't depends on yeah some people like that movie fucking blows and then some people like i liked it honestly we were always trying to make like a tnt a movie that could play on tnt and tbs over and over again like the tnt classics at the time we were making the movie i remember we were like hopefully one day this will be a tnt classic and now it does play on tv so i feel kind of like all right well it's where it needs to be but this idea of like developing your own audience and just being that happened accidentally love you i mean that's like what the internet is all about now and it did your audience develop your audience but like you were really the first one the first

filmmaker i would say ed burns did the same thing he's done a great job of like just making movies that he likes to make on micro budgets yeah they don't have to be huge deals but he's got his audience and they love him and you've got the same thing i various mine was accidental mine was i just wanted to talk to anybody who had an interest in this bullshit like you know i i couldn't believe anyone gave a fuck about clerks. And so when they did, it was easy to engage with them. Like, hi, I can answer anything you want about this fucking thing. Like, I spent my year of my life doing it.

This is the biggest thing I've ever done in my life. What was the expectation when you're on set doing clerks? None. Zero. This is my hope. My hope was I read an article. It was an article that is in a frame right behind that door uh that uh in the village voice about richard link later when he took slacker to the iffm

so i was like all right we gotta make our movie and bring it to this iffm that was my only goal so the whole time we were making and i didn't even like i went to visit the iffm that year before and just to see what it was like i'd never been to a film festival in my life this is not technically a film festival it's a it's a film market plus more than anything else so i looked in at it i'd heard about it uh through that article um and and that amy tobin wrote about richard link later and then there was also this like TV special that had aired on CBS called made in New York and Ron silver hosted it. And it just looked at like some movies that were being shot on the streets of

New York. And then it looked at indie films that were like, it was like them going. And now, you know, there's a whole new wave of filmmakers who make these little movies. And this must've happened in 1991. I saw this on tv like

hal hart the hal hartley's hal hartley jim jarmusch spike lee but they were talking specifically about the iffm marketplace like look at all these kids make movies and they try to sell their hustle on their movies at the marketplace so i had a visual for what it looked like and then i went up one day to look at it myself and i was like all right this is what we're going for we make this movie and then we take it to this ifFM and then people see it. And like in the case of Slacker, Sony Pictures Classic bought it as a work in progress. So, you know, we'll go one better. We'll do a finished film and then hopefully someone will buy it.

Like I, I wasn't educated enough to know that like that's not what really happens at the marketplace. I was confusing it with like a film festival. And to be fair, that at that point didn't even happen in film festivals. The year we went to Sundance was the first year that any film had been bought at the film festival. Generally speaking, they were bought prior to the film festival or after the film festival ended. But that whole like heat of the moment, like we got to buy this. That happened our year. We weren't the first.

The first movie to be bought at sundance was go fish also represented by john pearson the guy who represented our film also a black and white movie ours was the boys black and white movie theirs was the girls black and white movie is about lesbians so that movie sold first we sold after um like four days later john pearson sold our movie to miramax um they sold i think think, to Goldwyn, Samuel Goldwyn Company. So we had no expectations of like, we'll go to Sundance and this movie will sell. I just thought we have to go to the IFFM, the Independent Feature Film Market, because that's what Richard did. And someone will see it.

And then the journey begins. Like that article in the Village Voice was like roadmap, treasure map. I was like, we just have to follow this. But even taking a step back to see Slacker, it was impactful, right? Yeah, that's the movie that made me want to be a filmmaker. Yeah, you see that movie. There's no other movie like it. There hasn't been any movie like it since.

Absolutely agreed. And that's not to say like, you know, oh, my God, it'll blow you away. Some people see it and they're like, this is the movie that made you want to be a filmmaker? Like, and yes, because number one, it was smart. Number two, it looked doable. Like, that's the thing. It was smart and doable. Like, it was clever.

I was engaged with it. I was like, this guy's smart. He just made a movie in his hometown. And it's not even like the main character. There's no main character. You just follow one person to another to another. And you're looking at life, day in the life of his community is smart. And then the second thing was like, my God, this is doable.

Like this doesn't look expensive at all. Like, you know, we had no internet, so I couldn't go online and be like, how much did it cost? But I read in an interview later on that it was not very expensive at all. And I was like, my God, like that's what got me into any film. You can make one of these movies inexpensively. Like if you got a really great location, you know, heard robert rodriguez interviewed on the howard stern show and he said you know for el mariachi he goes i had a guitar case a bus and a turtle and i wrote them all into

the movie so he's like write what you got he's like some people first time filmmakers write the movie in space they don't have space he's, but I wrote what I had access to. And I was listening to that interview and I was sitting in Quick Stop convenience store where I was working. And I looked around and I was like, what do I have access to? What could I write a movie about? What do I have that's different? And I looked at the store and I was like, you know, I've never seen anybody make a convenience

store movie. I see movies that end in convenience stores, like fucking Fast Times at Ridgemont High ends in a convenience store. But I've never seen a movie set in a convenience store movie i see movies that end in convenience stores like fucking fast times richmond high ends in a convenience store but i've never seen a movie set in a convenience store like maybe that's what i got going for me and it turns out that's what it was man it was the great equalizer you know people whether you lived in a convenience store like i did as an employee whether you interacted with the convenience store regularly like you know people who lived in town went there every day for milk and shit and cigarettes or whether every once in a while you just fucking walked into a convenience store everyone has a working fundamental knowledge of a convenience store worldwide and i never put that together i was never like strategic about it all i did was look around and be like well this place

like i got a set this is a set like you know if you're gonna make a movie do it someplace interesting all the shelves are full i don't have to build this like the toppers will let me do it here because i'm here all the time anyway and they're never here so i'll just ask them can i shoot a movie here and i did and they said go ahead all seem doable based on seeing slack right yeah and then it blows up through slacker clerks clerks we yeah we got very lucky i mean but to here for those that are like you know oh the blow-up part that'll never happen to me let me just uh make clear clerks never played on more than 50 screens in its entire theatrical life it was a true art house release and stuff so it wasn't like you know we were on a fucking thousand screens and shit it was never 50 at once it was like 50 max and prints got shuffled around from place to place and 50 was as wide as

it ever went generally played on like played in all the big cities that was it but the story around it was big that fucking traveled that traveled and captured people's imaginations like where people like hey this kid he worked in this convenience store he made a movie there and i never imagined that that would connect like for my money robert rodriguez had the be all end all fucking backstory i donated my body to medical science to make a seven7,000 movie. So I didn't think like us going like, we made a movie set in a convenience store for $27,575 would be news at all.

I thought people would be like, why'd you waste so much money? This guy fucking did it for seven grand. Where'd your other 20 go on coke and horse? So I never thought that anyone would be like, Ooh, the backstory is interesting, but we were up at Sundance. And by the second fucking screening, that's what the media started writing about. People in print were like, this is adorable. This guy, he works at this store in New Jersey.

He made this movie about shooting a convenience store while working at that store. He brought it up here to Sundance. And then when he goes home, he's going back to work at that convenience store. Like, can you believe it? And then, you know, they were like, hey, do you want to talk and i love to talk so i was like oh yeah absolutely and because i've been a fan of stand-up comedy my whole life and anytime i saw someone with a microphone in their hand they were trying to be entertaining i didn't go the route of erudition i wasn't there to teach people how to be a filmmaker i barely knew how to do it myself

as people could see from clerks i decided try to be funny like you know look people are looking at you you got a mic in your hand they're asking you questions about your movie you can't answer it like a true filmmaker being that you've only done it once so tell them funny stories about how you got to get the cat to shit on cue or you know how you got the film for real cheap and shit like that make it entertaining that would be extending the movie so the movie ends and people had a good time and instead of standing up there dryly being like you know well the art of film is to capture a human truth i just sat up there and be like let me tell you

the story about how we got the cat to shit on cue so they're like as relatable as the movie is the guy who made the movie was talking about it afterwards he's pretty relatable too man and slowly over the course of like you know what five what, five, six years after of doing Q and A's after movies, you get comfortable up there. And suddenly I realized, oh, I have another usable skill. I could just go up and talk about the movies. Like it's fun to make the movies and stuff, but now I can go up and talk about the movies and that can be its own unique thing.

What do you think about the kind of explosion of podcasting in the last i mean even in the last like a year or two where now everybody's got a podcast and it's blown up as somebody who was there from day one i'm not look i'm happy for it and i've been out there for years telling people like record a podcast like i would end most of my shows with like everybody should be recording a podcast at this point because you never know it could turn into something blah blah i'm all for it i'm all for the democratization of conversation like let everybody have a chance at that let everybody step up to the mic let everybody have their own fucking show we all know how to do it we've all listened to media watched media our

entire lives and when you do that you're always like man if i was in charge i'd do it differently well here's your fucking chance right like there's no barrier to entry none whatsoever nobody could tell you no there's no like uh gatekeeper who's like well your art is not good enough hence you're not going to be a part of this you sit down with a microphone and maybe somebody interesting or your phone use your phone and now they have apps where you can literally publish from your phone smart very smart but yeah it's crazy how easy it is now and and i'm all for it i think everybody should have a show you now with that many people doing shows everybody can't expect to have an audience that's the only problem like when we started we started february 2007 it was easy to find an audience because there was plenty

of audience and not a lot of shows right now shows get created all the fucking time like when we started all the shows that i've started like you know we used to take pictures of the charts and shit like that on itunes like the screenshots yes like launching at number one and being like oh my god like even my my friend malcolm ingram had a podcast called uh blowhard and when we And when we launched that, we launched that at fucking number one. Like it was so easy back in the day. Now I doubt I could launch a podcast at number one.

It'd be hard. It's a crowded marketplace. And now the dominant podcast seems to be the political podcast. Political podcast and true crime. And like people love fucking highly produced storytelling which to me is like i mean that's fine you want to distribute it through a podcast by all means do whatever you want but that that's like you know those podcasts are like npr level great coming from npr talent in some cases like trained professionals i ain't taking anything

away from anybody all are welcome oh i'm like the lady in poltergeist rush over children all are welcome that being said you know i think of podcasting as kind of like ham radio like a bunch of enthusiasts who are like oh i could never get play in that community nobody's ever going to hire me for the radio um or to give me a tv show so this is mine i get to do it here so when you know folks who can get jobs like jump into it folks like me you know i was a filmmaker and i could stand on stage and talk but i love the idea of the medium like what i get to have my own show fuck it i'm gonna do it you know it's just it's it's it's a lot of big fish swamp in the pond jumping in going like oh shit like i just saw conan o'brien is conan started one

where you're like a couple hey fucking boy your fingers on the pulse buddy uh but but that being said it's like here comes another one a big fish gonna jump in the pool displace a lot of water get a lot of guests and shit like that and you, you know, I'm not good for him, but, you know, he figured out a little late, but he figured out what I figured out, which is like, you can pivot to this. This is something else to do. That's why I jumped into it. And you can control it and own it. And there's nobody there. He controls and owns his own show.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. But who knows for how much longer? And maybe that's why the podcasting thing. Yeah, yeah. But i but i don't begrudge anybody why they do it man it's just when big names get into it you know it's kind of like here i'll liken it to and again i'm not condemning anybody because i was a quasi big name when i got into it um it's like indie film movement remember when the indie film movement started it was cats who'd never done it before. Who were like, I'm going to pick up a camera and I'm going to try this. And they have no access, but like, fuck, they got passion and talent and spirit and stuff

like that. And then all of a sudden everybody wants to make an indie movie, you know, like fucking DreamWorks made an indie movie, uh, with, uh, American beauty and it wins a fucking Oscar and stuff like that. And all these big names like Miramax, they're responsible for putting huge fucking faces into indie films. And yet Miramax is responsible for my career as well by buying clerks. They put me on the fucking map. But suddenly the indie field is diluted by famous people.

People that could go get jobs in real studio movies or working for real studios are like, i'm gonna slum it make an indie movie and stuff and that's fine all are welcome but at the same time spring break yeah and also it's just like what started as like hey man now the little people can make something gets taken over by the big people because if you're an investor do you want to invest in some fucking shitty movie about a guy who works in a convenience store? Or do you want to invest in Emma? You know, a retelling of the classic story with a movie star or a couple of fucking movie stars. And it's going to shoot over in England and stuff. And we'll ameliorate your cost because it'll run on BBC over there. And over here, you're just putting out in theaters.

And so, you know, it's like suddenly a business person is like, well, that way it makes a lot more sense. We can make a lot more money. a business person is like well that way it makes a lot more sense we can make a lot more money and so the average person you know who didn't really have access the outsider if you will suddenly kind of got squeezed to the to the far ends you know until they get tired and create a movement and mumblecore you know like fucking suddenly mumblecore was a bunch of people trying to take back like a new you know where's the next place where podcasting is that moment now though it's like there are so many fucking people doing it it's way crowded and it's only going to get more crowded because now people are waking up to like oh wait i could do this for my house and hey you're a name

people know who you are so like they'll they'll stop and listen to your podcast because they've seen you on tv or something like that so everyone everyone jumps in. And again, I ain't against that, the more the merrier, but that's, I've now seen firsthand two industries change, like since the moment I got into them. And the first one I got into, let's be fair, that industry had been around for a long time, but the podcasting was interesting because I always felt like, wow, we're here for something new. We're watching something get built. And then slowly as it went on, I would have these moments of dawning realization of like battlestar galactica this is all happening before it will all happen again like when we got an advertiser the only reason we got an advertiser on our podcast was because i was like hey podcasting's free it don't cost nothing

and one day my accountant was it cost you i was like what do you mean it's like more people listen this fucking podcast of yours the more we have to pay server costs right you're paying like bandwidth yeah i was like what do you mean i didn't know this shit and she was like you're eating up bandwidth it's costing money and stuff so there's no such thing as a free podcast free to others not to you and i was like fuck well i don't want to pay for this shit like i enjoy doing it but like how much does this cost and she told me i was like jesus fucking christ so i was like we gotta get it we gotta do something and so i didn't say soundcloud none of this existed like and it wasn't me it was my own personal server so i wasn't like let's

let's create a commercial like because that didn't happen nowadays you'd be like let's get advertisers but like there was nothing like that so i said to scott mosier i was like this is the primitive language i was like you know we need to get something like a corporate sponsor. Remember, you know, that movie that Robert Redford did, the game show movie and quiz show. He said, yeah. I was like, remember how in quiz show 21 was sponsored by Geritol? He was like, yeah. I was like, that's what we need.

Like a Geritol. Like somebody who'll sponsor the whole fucking thing and they could put their name on it and they're in exchange for us having their name on the podcast they're getting like our listeners like and i was explaining it like this had never been done before and really scott goes what do you mean like commercials and i was like yeah i guess what we need are but it was kind of like quote unquote like branded entertainment yes that's what they would call it now for me it was kind of like, quote unquote, like branded entertainment. Yes. That's what they would call it now. For me, it was because of Zack and Mary Make a Porno, we had a reference in the movie to the fleshlight.

Right. And somebody had sent us a letter saying, hey, man, I heard the reference in the movie and we appreciated it. And if you ever want to make a fleshlight with us, we'd love to do it. Sign the people of fleshlight. So, you know, it was one of those things I filed in the drawer. Like, what a funny letter. Like, to get a letter from the fleshlight people how cool then when we were doing this thing where i was like i gotta find a fucking person to pay for this podcast first person i thought of versus the flesh was the fleshlight i was like they said they wanted to do something

with us so i was like should we reach out to fleshlight and scott's like well it's not like you can reach out to pampers and wonder bread so you might as well reach out to fleshlight and scott's like well it's not like you can reach out to pampers and wonderbread so you might as well reach out to fleshlight and so we did and we were like we want to we want to do like these cartoons can you sponsor them and put your name on the show and stuff and so that was how we and we'll we'll sell the first organization to ever sponsor a podcast they were definitely the first organization to sponsor smog gas i'm sure leo laporte on this week in tech had to have somebody doing something but i would say we were the first ones to look outside the box and go like what is our audience familiar that i would have never heard of the fleshlight had it not been for podcasts that was that was also how i got tight with joe rogan because joe reached out to me he was like this fleshlight for real he's gone i got a podcast

should i should i use these fleshlight people the guy behind he was the dude from austin i think his name was yeah and then he's gone on to start on it yeah fleshlight was his family business yes yeah we met that dude and he kind of walked us through it and shit like that it was those were the wonder years it was like you know like the way people go to sundance now and like there's all these corporate you know fucking stops where you can get a free pair of jeans and shit if you take pictures and blah blah blah like you know now podcasting is the same way like you said there's an app specifically for recording a podcast that will help you upload it and shit like that you

could buy a podcasting kit um you know there's a an entire economy now that's based on ear balls you know something that we didn't know that term back when we began but like that's that's the name of the game when you're podcasting and stuff so now there are a lot of podcasts that exist and again i am crashing on them or shitting on them i'm all for as many as possible but a lot of them enter the space for profit where they're like well this is a business and we never did we entered the space for the glory of like somebody's gonna give i can record my own radio show like fuck oh my god that's worth my time and effort and shit and we never thought about monetizing it until somebody was like hey this costs you money i'm like oh fuck i can't let that happen i gotta cover my cost so i do i don't have regret about it but i wish

that and i don't even know if i wish it would have been nice if it if i never turned this into a business for myself right that it was still just the hobby it was and i still never conducted like a hobby needed yeah it never needed to be a business for you no but you know but that's how a business person thinks. We were like, my, my goal in life was like, figure out what you love to do and then figure out how to get paid for it. And the danger of that is that everything you love becomes your job. You run out of hobbies because all of a sudden you, you like something.

You're like, now, how do I fucking, how do I do this for a living? And I'm lucky I'm breathing rare, rarefied air. If I can figure out a way to sit down with a buddy and have a conversation we were gonna have for free get paid for it and that's my job then i feel very smart that's that's fantastic but it's also hard not to be romantic about the pure you know sort of origin story just doing it for the sake of fucking doing it of like because my god we can because somebody created this weird technology where we can just sit here and talk to each other and there'll be an audience for it online so that's how the audience was never the intention like you know i cannot be honest about that from the jump

even in making clerks i was never like i must think of the audience i think every real artist or i'm not saying i'm more real than others i think every artist is working for themselves it's masturbatory. You're trying to do your thing, tell your story. I want to show you what's in my head and heart and stuff like that. So you have to serve yourself first. And I think we're all built to think that way. For me, the audience always came second and I treat the audience insanely well. I mean, as you've seen, they've been around me for nearly 20, 25 years of my career. It's this January, it's 25 years since clerks.

I've built an audience and a lot of them have stuck with me and new ones come all the time and stuff. So clearly I love the audience. I include them in everything. They're a huge part of what I do. But I had to be honest with myself over the course of my career. I'm like, let's be honest. You're the most selfish person I've ever met.

The most, maybe not selfish. You're the most self-involved human being i've ever met in my life this is all about you this is all about getting your ideas out there telling your fucking story and shit if you were a child you'd be sitting there going my toys like i'm telling the story you can have these these are the ones i'm playing with so if that's the case just just embrace that. Yeah. Embrace it. Yeah, to be an artist, you have to have a self-belief that your point of view matters.

You have to say it's valid. It's so frustrating. It's so frustrating because periodically, like I spend most of my life going like, oh, I just saw Spider-Verse, Into the Spider-Verse. Well, they must know what I think. And I don't tell them about negative things. How can anybody navigate the world until they hear your take on this movie? must know what I think. And, you know, and I don't, I don't tell them about negative things. How can anybody navigate the world until they hear your take on this movie?

And it's only fed by the people in my social media who are like, I ain't seeing this until you talk about it. I've been waiting to see you talk about, Oh, thank God you finally said something. I've been waiting to find out. And suddenly you go like, they are waiting.

They do need to know what I hear. It's, it's, and again, this is a story that we all tell each other right there's some agreed upon story that like kevin smith's opinion on this shit matters one day it's gonna fall apart but right now i'm enjoying it and the heart attack didn't reset that no it made it stronger like the heart attack made people go like we almost lost him this year what does he

think about spider-man well now it's almost it is a it is a superhero archetype because here you are the phoenix raising from the ashes i mean you until i mean you basically like live streamed this whole thing i mean you're in the hospital bed i put up a facebook live but i was like i'm alive here's what happened right yeah it's been interesting uh being me and and part of it was definitely planned and as much as like i want to make this movie clerks but everything that came after that has been gravy and figuring it out as you go along like i didn't realize that my career would be me until like suddenly one day i was like oh i could just go out and talk about making the movies yeah you are the art project that's and that's i think what every artist really dreams about doing ultimately and stuff.

You present your art as a statement of who you are, but really ultimately it's once removed from you. If you could be the art project, I'm not talking about in a Lady Gaga wear meat kind of way, but if that works for you, go ahead. But in a performative way. Like when you see, like when Banksy, when that auction happened and they shredded,

you know, Banksy shredded the painting. Like, he is the art installation. Banksy, though, humble enough to, you never see him. And you don't even know who he is. That's part of the performance. My shtick is like, hi! I'm right in your face. Oh, my God.

You can't stalk me. I'm stalking you. That's because I don't want to go anywhere. I've been to the party, and the party's wonderful. The party is, we're going to pay you to make pretend and say the things that are on your heart and mind. I don't want to leave that party until I die, until I leave this world physically and stuff. Because I don't want to go back getting a real job. Like, I had real jobs.

They suck compared to this. So I don't want a real job again. I just want to stay in the show right till the end and unlike other people who you know as children dream about doing something and grow up and get to do it like your average athlete average athlete ages out of this shit they have to give up their fucking childhood dream at one point they get to do it for a while but they got to hang up those shoes or their skates or whatever fuck sooner or later because their body won't let them physically do it my line of profession my line of work you know i could

conceivably even from like an iron lung be kevin smith you know i could still like facebook live and podcast how do you maintain fidelity to that when you're on the receiving end i imagine of a lot of people saying you should do this why aren't you doing this you're doing this wrong you should if you really want the career you know you got to do this movie they gave up like the beautiful thing is if you outlast them now yes if you outlast them they're like this is the guy that made tusk obviously he's not listening that's it once you get to tusking yoga hoses they're like we're never getting through fuck him he's lost let's pay attention to somebody else and and that's fine like i get it there's always going to be like a you know armchair director telling you how to live your life and i also and i'm not saying

that in a shitty way i get why people in at home the home viewer why some of them like get turned off to me because in some ways i'm a bit of an avatar for them like he's like me he just watched all this shit and he knows all this shit the only difference is he tried to make something and it worked out luck and timing fucking he got his foot in the fucking door so some people go like all right he's us now this is what i would do with my career and then periodically you don't do or in my case all the time you don't do with your career what they would do with the career and so some people get mad at you like you wasted your opportunity my fuck you got all that and all you did was fucking tusk fuck you and they drop out or jersey girl i lost a lot of people on

jersey girl and shit because of something like that so i like i get it because because if you're investing in the kid from nowhere thing you know you're investing and some people are like i invested you know the same way they get you know heated about like an athlete that fucks up during the game like hey man what the fuck there's a sense of ownership like i took you under my wing you're my boy i went out there in the world and said you're the fucking guy and you're gonna drop the ball like that they get mad at you and shit like that so over the years i've learned to have a relationship with it in the beginning you know you got to remember i was there for the advent of the internet i was there for the first time where people would jump online a total fucking stranger and tell you to

drop dead and that your work is terrible like now that's commonplace now we all know how to deal with that but that was at a time where i'm like what do i do do we call the police this person like told me to die like do they really mean it and shit like that? So you grow a layer, you know, of skin, thicker skin, but also you just learn what it is. You learn to take it all in stride. You can't believe the people that say like, you're a genius. And you can't believe the people who say you're an idiot. You just do you. And then slowly people just stop telling you what to do.

There'll always be somebody, you know, you should do. And that's fine. Like we're all entitled to that. But like the people who seem most frustrated about like, you know, why the fuck isn't he doing this seem to have, maybe they're just giving up. Maybe they're like, he's not a serious filmmaker and they've moved on. And that's, that's fine with less scrutiny. I might function a little bit better.

Yeah. Well, the, the, the positive flip side of that and what I think is your greatest gift is you allow a certain set of marginalized people to feel okay about loving what they love. Yes. Because you love it so much. As long as that's comics and pop culture and not Nazism, nationalism. Like sort of nerd culture or whatever. I mean as that's comics and pop culture and not Nazism. Right, no.

Nationalism. Like sort of nerd culture or whatever. I mean, now nerd culture is pop culture. And it's the dominant culture. Right, but still just having, you know, this level, just being so steeped in some of these things that tend to isolate, you know, a certain kind of kid out there to provide community and say hey man it's cool like i like this stuff too in fact and i know everything about it man let me sit down and tell

you about it right it's okay to love that kind of shit there's a period where like when i was a kid you know you liked comics you were stupid but if you like sports you were fucking real and it's like what like they're both fucking made up like none of them are real like yeah people run around on a field and shit but that's a game like nothing's gonna come of this except somebody's gonna arbitrarily decide who the fucking winner is it's not gonna cure cancer it's not gonna move society forward it's just fucking fun so is my shit my shit's fun and guess what my shit's just like your shit what is is your shit? People get up on a field, wear masks and colorful costumes and fight each other. Guess what we do in my shit?

People wear masks, wear colorful costumes, and they fight each other. It's no fucking different. And it took me a lifetime to figure that out. It's true. We made a decision somewhere along the line that one was socially approved of. And this is for kids. This is for kids because this one you this is for kids because you know games are for children but for some reason this game you could follow into your adulthood and

that's mature there's maturity to liking sports even though it's a fucking game and for some reason when i was a kid there was an immaturity if you carried comic books into adulthood but now that that line is erased like let's be honest we now live in a culture where pop culture and comic books and genre dominates or at least stands shoulder to shoulder with sports but i might go one step further and say it's the dominant culture now more kids want to fucking go to the movies and fucking play video games and read comic well maybe not read comics but they should um and watch tv and stuff like that and engage with other fans of the like-minded individuals of the same kind of stuff than the other people, than the people who do it in sports. I mean, look, I mean, this is probably going to be an unfair statistic, but a lot of cable cord cutters, you know, ESPN audience is shrinking.

We see that every day when the Disneyney kind of uh stock results and whatnot and they're always kind of reporting it's like we've lost more people and i'm not saying they're all coming over at comics but you don't hear that shit about comics you don't hear marvel going like we can't make any money with these comic book movies like they just keep making more and more and more and more because sports are a fun story don't get me wrong and the audience is responsible for applying more story to a sporting event and the difference is you really don't know what's going to happen you don't it's happening but there is no story there it's literally like flip a coin and it's like you know you're moving a ball up a field and shit like that but we assign great

sports writers assign stories like this kid hard scrabble kid came out of nowhere and learned how to handle a puck by himself that's all the shit that you add. The only difference between sports, loving sports and loving comic books and movies and shit is they give you they spoon feed you the story in comics. You know, they don't have you don't have to sit there and imagine, boy, it must be hard. I wonder how long that person had to train to be good with a bowling ball and shit. They'll show you in the movie like his mother died at the hands of a villain. And that's why he got good with a bowling ball. That's gripping story.

died at the hands of a villain and that's why he got good with a bowling ball that's gripping story so i could see where people leaning more towards movies and and comic book entertainment than than sports if i'm correct and i'm sure somebody out there is like you're wrong kevin you're wrong it's our number one export which entertainment or sports yeah entertainment yeah i guess sports is on that list too i would imagine well culture Well, culture, you know, the culture that we export. But I think that that scale has tipped. I mean, we're in a Comic-Con culture. There's no question about it. I got lucky. Like, thank God.

Because if we were in a sports culture, I'd be fucked. My career would be over. Oh, my God. I'd be done. But since I got hockey, I could talk hockey. That's it. But since like, good news isn't for me, at least, is in 1995 when I made Mallrats, we made this movie where we were

like you know we presupposed a world where everybody knew who stanley was and that wasn't the case when we made the movie but the world grew up to be that of course and everyone did eventually know who stanley was so i was just in a good place because people like you've been talking about this shit for 20 years what are your thoughts and they stick a microphone in your mouth and uh i'm happy to give my opinion at any given time yeah and generally my opinion is positive when i was a kid i'd shit on things as an adult i don't really do that i haven't really shit on anything in fucking over a decade because and there are things i don't like trust me but you'll never hear about it because why would i waste my breath telling you oh i love to keep it positive i love seeing

the effect that has on people like i love when people compliment me on that. Like, fuck somebody going like, oh, I love the movies. I love how they're like, man, I love that you're so positive. Like, it really fucking brings me up. That's what means something at the end of the day. Like, you know, eventually people are going to stop talking about these movies. I won't because they're my movies and stuff. But like, eventually people are going to be like, oh, yeah, clerks. I think I saw that like decades ago.

But so many more important things have happened since then. So you can't always affect them with your work and let's be honest i lose some people with my work lately like they don't give a fuck about the walrus movie and shit like that but where you can still grab people right by the seat of their pants or in their face or especially in their fucking heart is by showing them something they never really see which is positivity it's a negative fucking world i love the internet but my god it's built for fucking negativity because there's nothing but anonymity there. You can hide beyond a shield and shit all over the fucking world. I can't do that. I'm not anonymous. People know who I am. So I'm not going to stand there and fucking shit on the world.

Everybody's doing that. There's two paths in this life, right? It's creation and destruction. And the destruction path is fucking crowded because that's an easy lane to travel on, man. Oh my God. Anybody can fucking shit on something else and say it's bad i try to go to the creation lane wide open lots of free mobility and shit because people don't want to try that it's risky you got to put something yourself out there and people might judge you for it and shit like that so i've taken it upon myself conscious effort over the last 10-15 years to be the positive guy, to just be like, look, just kill him with kindness because it's just as real. You know what I'm saying? Like kindness and being positive. It's just as real as negative negativity and being shitty. It's a story that you tell yourself.

So if you're going to make up a fucking story anyway, why not let it be a positive story? Why not let it be a story where shit works out for everybody? So when I talk to people about their dreams and Leon, I talked to a lot of people who are like i want to make films i'm like oh my god you will you're gonna do it because i did it and i'm a chimp and i know how lazy i am and it worked out for me but i could see the fucking passion in you these are the things that help me let me tell you i'll pass them on maybe that'll fucking help you and shit feed that beast feed any creative urge so long as that creative urge isn't like i want to creatively creatively kill people. How about I bury people up to their necks and run over their heads with lawnmowers? Discourage that sort of thing. Discourage any creativity that involves

hurting others. Creativity though, when people are like, I want to do, I want to make, I'm fucking right there for them, man. I can't give them the money. Some cats come at you like, well, then give me the money to do it. But I'm like, hey, you're talking to the guy who didn't have money given to him either. i know wherever i speak trust me it's going to mean more to you if you do it on your own and more importantly there's no fucking help coming i'll be honest with you no one's coming to help you make your dreams come true that's up to you right it's like that speech that mark duplass gave at at south by southwest what'd he say he gave this keynote where he was like the cavalry is not coming man man. When did he say this?

He got up at, I think it was a year or two ago at South by Southwest. And he basically was like, it's on you, man. I might have had him beat by a decade. I got up at Sundance for Red State and said the same thing. I was like, it's on you. I didn't say the cavalry is not coming. Your relatability and your optimism and your positivity and your encouragement and being this like you know example of like diy success is empowering to people so it's almost a responsibility for you to shoulder that and and as we all know with great power comes great responsibilities that's

the stand taught us you have power as i look around your museum it's a museum it's as you look around it's just my face but i will say my favorite thing was the Buckaroo Bonsai poster in the bathroom. Thank you. I had that poster. I love that. That movie shaped a great deal of who I am today. Some movies, you know. Incredible movie.

It's a fantastic movie, but it's a movie that like nobody knew. Like it was one of the first movies I discovered. Like you had that pride of discovering it. Yes. Yes. Yes. I remember showing it to my dad yes you have to see this he didn't get it at all but it was like that pride of like finding

something that's that's what social media is predicated on that same feeling of like let me share something with you that's the new currency it's not so much wealth it's information it's being able to say like i saw spider verse array let me fucking tell you what you're in for or here's a picture of uh that we did a video we did of my husband coming home from the service and we hit him in a fucking christmas box and told our son this is for you and when he unwrapped the boxes dad fucking popped i saw that it's beautiful oh my god it's profoundly beautiful and probably the best film i saw all year and that counts that's cinema and shit like that but passing on that positivity they remember you for that bro they don't you know i know it's easy to remember negative shit like god believe me i can i still quote you the negative review that i got from kenny turan in the la times for mall rats first

sentence was if sundance or the afi ever offers a curriculum on what not to do as a second feature, Mallrats should be at the heart of it. So it's easy to remember shitty things. Positive things make a deeper impact. Positive things can change a person's life. Sometimes a person just needs to be told they can do it. You can do it. And I'm the person to tell them because I am that person. And when they look at me saying it, they know it's not bunk know like look it may or may not happen but he fucking believes it and

he knows wherever he speaks because he did it that's why i am a believer because i did well i was a diy guy and it did work out and i'm always very clear about like look it may not work out like exactly like it worked out for me but you're gonna have something at the end of the day if you bother to go on this journey and fucking make something, you're going to have something nobody else is going to have. That fucking thing, whatever it is that you make. And that thing is priceless. Like, we're all looking at the end game because we hope somebody buys whatever it is we're

working on and stuff like that. I was that guy, too, when I made Clerks, man. I just wanted somebody to fucking buy this thing so I could be out of debt and shit. But the making of the thing, the having of the thing. I don't own Clerks anymore. I don't make any money off of that movie. And I never will for the making of the thing the having of the thing i don't own clerks anymore i don't make any money off of that movie and i never will for the rest of my life but i have that movie that's mine i made that thing and i may not own it it may on paper belong to somebody else

but without me that fucking thing doesn't exist and so it's affected people in a positive way but fuck all that it's affected me in a profoundly positive way and And as much as there's my statement, I'm going to leave this world and a bunch of people I never met are going to know a little bit about me based on seeing my art. And it's a lighthouse for other people. It's like this beacon that says, do it. It's possible. Yes, do it, bitch. Try it. And so when you look

back on your career, what are the moments that stick out? Like, I think people think, oh, it must be, you know, when Clark sold or, you know, people think oh it must be you know when clerk sold or you know these kind of like highlight you know i like real things i mean honestly clerk selling was such an incredible high the the difference between we're talking we're talking about this on spot you're like you're talking about like your favorite like remember when that happened like what are those things

it's the mundane right it is well for moj like moj always remembers fondly and it's so wild that he remembers it maybe it's because i have the picture but like there's a very vivid memory of us being at the can film festival and we were part of this section called international critics week and we didn't get in because of miramax uh there was a guy who was lobbying for us for the section and you know miramax could care less they had movies with money in it that they were trying to take to the festival we kind of got in last minute through this section back door and miramax was like oh oh good for you guys and stuff so we went there with no expectation i mean we were like i can't believe we're going to cam with our first fucking movie

this is nuts but you got to remember we came off of Sundance and that was even more nuts. And the fact that Miramax bought it, that was nuts too. So the whole fucking ride was nuts. But we're in Cannes and the lady, you know, who's taking care of us for Critics Week section, she's from Toronto. She was like, you guys have to go to this award ceremony for Critics Week at the end of, you know, it's tonight. You guys got to go.

And I'm like, I don't have any clothes. I didn't bring any dress clothes. And you're supposed to wear dress clothes. She goes, you know what? They're going to make an exception. You have to go. And I was like's tonight you guys got to go and i'm like i don't have any clothes i didn't bring any dress clothes and you're supposed to wear dress clothes because you know what they're gonna make an exception you have to go and i was like i don't want to go like fucking we and him just want to go see movies and shit like we want to go to no ceremony and shit and eat dinner and finally she's like you have to go because you're probably going to win an award and i was like what award she's like international critics week the top award of the section i was like that's the award that man bites dog won last year we're never gonna fucking win that if anything we won an award for like being a black and white

movie like that was but we're not gonna win that award we won that award so we're sitting there in the audience and they announce it like the winner and the guys got a thick german accent because it was like uh mercedes-benz sponsored it and stuff so we were half in and barely listening and stuff we heard our names at one point because they listed the movies and they were clucks i was like all right and people applauded and shit then all of a sudden they go and the winner is clucks and there's a photo of the moment and it's mosher's back and you can see my fucking face and so mosher was there when it happened but i also suspect he's seen the photo many times so it re you know reaffirms the image my face has just this expression of utter fucking awe of like are you did we just win an award at

the can film festival with this fucking shit like you can still see it on my face and mosher talks about that and is everybody in black tie and you're in your hockey jersey everyone's very well dressed and we're wearing i was wearing a can like souvenir t-shirt that i bought for three bucks under my jacket um the moment that that's for mosher that that's very vivid moment uh for for me of course the moment that like we go to the the eating establishment there's a restaurant at park City and that's where we meet Harvey Weinstein and he buys our movie.

But that memory, of course, is now since tainted because Harvey's at the center of it. But you can't take it away. Like that moment changed my fucking life. But this, honestly, this is the moment that I'll take with me to the grave.

And it happened before everything else happened. Before anyone saw that movie at Sundance or anything like that. I was working at Quick Stop and the movie set at Quickstop. So I was literally just doing Dante, because Dante is based on me. So I'm at the register, and Bob Hawk, who is a guy who had saw our film at the IFFM, that independent feature film marketplace I was talking about, that I found through the Richard Linklater article that Amy Taubman had written in the Village Voice.

So Bob had saw Clerks at the IFFM. through the richard link later article that amy talvin had written in the village voice so um bob had saw uh clerks at the iffm he was one of the only people at our screening who wasn't casting crew and he had told us you guys should submit to sundance we looked at his badge wearing a badge to identify him and he didn't have a name on his badge that made you think like this guy knows what he's talking about like it wasn't miramax or fineline or something like that it just said ici so uh you know i didn't we didn't think much of it and then uh we found out the next day because we got a bunch of phone calls important phone calls um that this guy was a big figure in independent film and he did nowhere if he spoke and stuff and he loved clerks he fell in love with he's like what a breath of fresh air and stuff he's

telling everybody those people are getting in touch with us. Amy Talbin, who wrote that article that Richard Linklater that I used as a map, she called me the next day. And I was like, this can't be Amy Talbin. Somebody is playing practical joke. And she was like, who would ever pretend to be me? And I was like, I'm serious. Like I just have, I have your article framed above my desk. Like that's, that's what we use to make clerks she's like this is gonna be the best interview i've ever given so she called larry cardish who ran the new directors for new films program at the moma which is the sister festival to the new york film festival he called peter broderick called wanted to do an article on for filmmaker magazine i said and none of them

would tell me like who told him about clerks how did you hear about it nobody was there how would you have heard about our movie and finally peter broderick was like there's a man named bob hawk who loves your movie and everybody loves bob bob's been deep in independent film for years he worked on the times of harvey milk that won an oscar and stuff so i gotta meet this man he's the guy that turned it all around he told people we met bob hawk wonderful fucking dude who just fell in love with clerks like and the only reason he went he's like i saw the photo in the catalog and it looked so pathetic he said the picture looked so bad like nobody knew what the fuck they were doing and he said that looks so sad i gotta go watch it and he fell in love with the movie so bob hawk is uh tells us to submit to sundance. We do. And Bob Hawke calls me at Quick Stop, where I'm working,

on that same pay phone that Dante uses in the movie. He calls me up, 7 o'clock or something like that. He goes, hey, Kevin, it's Bob Hawke. I say, hey, man, how's it going? And Bob was involved with the Sundance selection committee that year, like consulting. So he goes, I just wanted to tell you that um you're in the top 20 right now he's like of all the films submitted 450 movies submitted

clerks is one of 20 films that's under consideration i was like wow man that's crazy for the dramatic competition um there's only going to be 14 or 16, 14. There's only gonna be 14 chosen. He's gone. I don't know if you're going to make the final cut. He's gone by. I thought that this would make you happy. Like hearing that you made it this far, your little movie, you never thought of even submitting to Sundance and stuff.

And he's gone. It's, it's really nice. You should be proud of stuff. And I was like, what's going to keep us out? And he was like, some people love it. Some people don't think it's a sundance worthy film but right now you are sundance worthy and i was like thanks man i hung up and stuff that's it man that wasn't the moment half hour that's not the moment no way half hour later bob calls up and he goes um it's official

it's in stone you're in theance Film Festival. That changed my life. That was, I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that guy telling me. And you're on the quick stop phone. I was in the store on the fucking same phone that Dante's in in the movie and stuff like that. And, you know, I had no plans about Sundance. My only plans were the IFFM and nothing happened to it.

So like, I was like, I'm dead in the water. I got to pay this $27,000 back and shit like that. So to suddenly have that guy be like, you're in, it just made it all worth it. It made me go like, thank God I wasn't stupid. For a while, I was thinking, who do you think you were? Why did you think you could pull this off? Why did you think that you were fucking special? Why did you think you could pull this off? Why do you think that you were fucking special? Why do you think this would work, you asshole?

You know, like I dreaded going. I went to film school in Canada at one point. And then I dropped out after four months and went back to work at Quick Stop at the convenience store. And I was really dreading that because, you know, our community was such that they all knew I was leaving because I was like, I'm going to film school. I'm going to learn to make a movie. And then suddenly I was going to be back in four months. So I dreaded people being like, Hey,

Hollywood, what happened to Hollywood? I thought you were going out to make a movie. Hollywood, what happened with the movie? And there was a bit of that when I came home, but I just kind of put my nose to the grindstone. Like when I got back from,

when I dropped out of school, I went to Mr. Topper, Mrs. Topper who owned that store quick stop. And I said, I want to make a movie here. I'm going to come back to work here, but I want to make a movie here. And they didn't understand what that meant.

They thought I'd be running around with a video camera and shit. They're like, oh, go, go. Yes, of course you can. They just wanted me to work there because I was a pretty good worker. And that meant they could go stay in Staten Island. They didn't have to come into the store every day. But then, so to be that guy who, like, don't know why. I was never proactive in high school i wasn't i was in

sketches in the talent show and i love being in the plays but like i was not the planner i was not like fuck i'm going to college i never applied to college and shit like that i didn't have big plans and big moves and dreams like i was oh i wish i could write for saturday night live but never did anything about it or anything like that was just hoping one day to be discovered so for that call to come and that dude to be like you're in like you're one of the you're one of the fucking 14 that are chosen it meant that i wasn't wrong like maybe nothing would happen to clerks but hey fuck it went it's going to the sundance film festival yeah and you know i remember when i was watching the movie at the iffm for the first time, I hated

it for the first 10, 15 minutes of the movie because there was nobody in the audience and I'd never seen the movie projected large on a screen. I'd only seen it on the editing machine. So there it is at the same theater where I saw Slacker like two years prior. Oh, at Angelica? At the Angelica Film Center. So I'm watching the movie in the first 10, 15 minutes of Clerks. I hate it because I'm like, oh my God, it looks like shit. Like, it looks like we shot this movie through

a glass of milk. Why did I, why did I, why didn't we shoot in color? And then everyone kept cursing. I was like, why is everyone cursing in this movie? Everyone keeps cursing. It sounds so fucking horrible. I was like, why did I think I could do this? I am fucked. I'm like deeply in credit card debt. And like, nobody's fucking here all of this was for fucking nothing like i had a mini breakdown and then within four minutes i cognitively reframed it so i heard some people in the audience granted they were friends of mine laugh at the movie and i was like oh all right i was like all right get it. Like, you know, you had no expectation that this should work out anyway. And so clearly it's not going to work out.

So what you do is pay it off. Just money on a credit card. If you have to get three jobs, you'll get a third job and shit like that. But make sure you pay it off and then do this one more time before you leave this world. Because you fucking loved who you were when you were doing this. For the first time in your life, you knew exactly who you were when you were doing this for the first time in your life you knew exactly who you were this fucking that's the thing the commitment to do it again even if it wasn't gonna work which was never tested you know what i'm saying like i'm full of good ideas but like had you not gotten who knows what would have

happened like would i have done it a second time how's it going now yeah twenty seven thousand dollars exactly you know so i that's my whole career has been like gravy honestly i i had one How's it going now? Yeah. $27,000. Exactly. So I, that's my whole career has been like gravy. Honestly, I had one thing I wanted to do. I was like, I just want to make this movie clerks and it wasn't even, I want to make it and I want these people to pick it up and I want it to become like a cult classic or whatever.

I just wanted to do that one fucking thing. So everything after that has been like fucking gravy, lots and lots of gravy, even when it's bad, it's still gravy. Cause it's like, you know, even in the midst of it's bad it's still gravy because it's like you know even in the midst of cop out and fucking bruce willis i was like well this or digging graves in the graveyard which i did one day it worked for a landscaping company we had to hand

dig a fucking grave actually dug a grave yeah the backhoe went out and they were like get in the hole we got to dig a grave i'm digging a fucking grave going like i don't like this this is back breaking labor plus it's creepy like i gotta do something else i gotta make pretend for a living so speaking of gravy now it's all vegan gravy oh it's all that mushroom gravy going for two hours the word vegan hasn't even come up once which is so weird because it's a big identifying factor of who i am now yeah it's one of the first things that comes out of my mouth in every conversation in a restaurant i'm vegan by the way um yeah i had after the heart attack um i the there was a nutritionist at the hospital who was like uh you know you might want to think about a more plant-based diet because you know all that cholesterol

in your lad like that's that's from animal products and i was like oh fucking oh twinkies and then i remember we were too poor to afford twinkies so it was a little debbie swiss delight so the the nutritionist said like, think about going plant-based. My kid's vegan. She was in the room and she was like, yes, do it. We have to- Your daughter's been vegan for a long time, right? Three years ahead of me. And I remember watching her and being like, this seems so hard. Like all your choices are really limited. Like you can't eat it at any restaurants. Like, you know, they ain't got anything. And even the stuff that God has near the food, that's not vegan. I was like,

this poor kid. And then she was there in the room so she was like do it dad do it one of us and she was really profoundly affected by the heart attack our kids loved it led a relatively first world existence you know like no bads ever really happened to her and stuff so uh she lost her grandfather but that was years ago she was a kid she was a baby um me having a heart attack was like the you know fucking welcome to the real world motherfucker and so it hit her hard so she was staying in the hospital with me that night she stayed overnight so when the nutritionist was there she was there as well and her pushing me to go like you go vegan dad like i was like you know what like i put this kid through a scare i've eaten the way i wanted to eat for 47 fucking years

let me try eating the way she wants wanted to eat for 47 fucking years. Let me try eating the way she wants me to eat for one fucking year. I'll give this a year and see how it goes. So that was like a full-on commitment from the get-go. Yeah, after the heart attack. I was like, all right, I'll fucking do it. Last piece of meat I ate, quasi-meat, was in the hospital. When they gave me food the next next day one of them like was chicken nuggets and i you know it's crazy that they serve food like that in the hospital

somebody who's just had a heart attack my kid was furious she was just like he just had a heart attack you're getting food chicken fried chicken and stuff and i was like calm down kiddo but i took one bite of it and i was like, yeah, I don't need that. I'm done. So that was the last piece of animal product to eat. And I thought it'd be a lot harder than it was. And I didn't, for those listening who are like, how do I fucking do it? I didn't, I didn't do, it's not like I suddenly one day I was like, now I'm going to eat Brussels sprouts and asparagus.

I still don't eat any of the shit that I didn't eat back then. Slowly, I hope it'll work its way into my diet. I became the vegan where I'm like, all right, what can I eat? I like beans. I seem to like these chickpeas quite a bit. I like this. I like that. I found things that I could exist on being a vegan and went that way.

That helped because of Ray Cronies. Right. Ray's a friend. Ray's diet was what got me started. being a vegan and went that way that helped because of ray cronies right ray's friend ray's diet was what got me started and then started on and then terrified me because it went from potatoes to corn well he's he was fine but it was the the just sides like potato like super hardcore like and that part was a heart attack dude i was so happy to do it eating the potatoes was so fucking easy like that's why i why a friend of mine, Adam Rifkin, had said. I know, Adam.

Like, Penn Jillette lost 100 pounds, bro. Maybe you should talk to Penn. And so I emailed Penn. And he goes, look, if you're interested in doing what I did, read my book and then get back to me. So I didn't read it. I listened to his book because I love his voice. And so I was like, I get it.

I got it. I want to be a cronut. he was like i'm gonna introduce you to ray ray or ray so uh i read the you know the for those that have never read the book are unfamiliar with it you know ray just asked that like you just he told pen put me put yourself in my hands just trust me do what i say to do and no matter what people say just keep doing it it's gonna seem crazy but fuck everybody else in fact don't even talk about what you're doing because it's too hard to explain the shit so he started pen on like this potato diet two weeks all pen ate was potatoes and you know he writes about it very eloquently in the book um and entertainingly but what i gotta have first and foremost was like wait a second pen gillette lost a bunch of weight eating fucking potatoes i love potatoes i can eat potatoes fucking i could try this so i hit him

up i was like hit me up with ray ray introduced me to he's like first two weeks yes gonna be potatoes like please don't call it a potato famine people do that i hate it he's going but yes that's what it is you're only gonna be eating potatoes and i'm part of the just sides program like you could read a thing that he writes every day and whatnot so for the first three days i was like oh my god this is amazing man i fucking love potatoes and i can eat as many as i want i'd sit there and eat three potatoes and shit like that by the end of the day three you're like i fucking hate potatoes i hate them so much you realize you like milk and salt and butter and all the shit that makes mashed potatoes good and shit and left to your own devices just to eat a potato which is just baked people listening like well how do you do it

bake them boil them just you can't use anything no no butter no salt no oil and shit just literally a fucking potato heat that shit eat it and you do that as often as you like yeah but what you learn very quickly is you don't want to eat that i had a dude on my podcast this dude andrew taylor he he he calls himself spud fit he ate nothing but potatoes for an entire year right i've seen yes i've seen that dude i've never met him pounds yeah you know he was really unfit and unhealthy did he do a dry too no salt no butter no yeah no salt no butter i think he i think he would have like there was some kind of like herbs that he allowed himself to put on or whatever yeah but like nothing that had any you know sugar or fat in it or anything

like that smart yeah um so you went all potatoes for how long two weeks two weeks the two weeks and it was i mean what i also learned to do and you know he teaches it fairly well in that program as well is fasting um so like i you know i was a guy that was like i'm hungry i'm gonna eat and now i'm not that person at all now i don't really i don't eat breakfast i find breakfast to be like hype and propaganda where it's like you gotta eat a breakfast and they don't or i don't i've got a lot of stored energy i'm gonna work off this for a while i try to make it as late in the day as possible i learned that from ray so i generally don't eat till noon or after and i kind of subsist off one really good meal a day um i just don't eat that much like and so and what i do eat all

plant-based right um you've lost like 50 pounds 50 pounds came off yeah it was pretty i mean easy considering that it wasn't like i had to fucking, you know, pull one of them truck tires in a CrossFit studio. Like literally it was just giving up animal food products. And I had a cheerleader in as much as the kid. And I also live in a household where everyone was, the kid's vegan, but everyone else was vegetarian. So I was the last like holdout. And, you know, I was like, oh, I'm going to miss turkey and fucking mash because I love that and shit. But I don't. I don't and shit. But I don't.

I don't miss it. Like, I don't miss anything. I don't miss milk, which I used to drink a lot of and stuff. There's no. That's the thing that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around. They think you're lying when you say that you don't crave those things anymore. You just find shit. But it changes.

You find new shit to like. Think about it. You probably don't eat the same exact shit you ate as a kid. Like, your taste buds mature and you find something else and you stick with that for a while. So for me, like I was never a big burger guy, but like in this world,

if you really want one, you can get a beyond burger and get a, you know, incredible burger and stuff like that. Um, it's, it's not a lot of people think about what am I going to have to give up, but you got to think about what you're going to gain.

And, you know, I'm pretty sure unless I get hit by a bus or fucking struck by lightning or home invaded and fucking slaughtered, I'm probably going to live longer based on the choices that I'm making now. So when you go in, I assume you're going in for regular checkups with your cardiologist. I haven't. Yeah.

The last time I went in with Dr. Leidenheim was four months ago. He's like, I don't need to see you until February. I was like, what? He's like, yeah. Next time I see you is february i was like that's the one year anniversary of the heart attack he goes that's what i'm gonna see you on the same day right um he was looking at when i started with ray he was like i don't like the sound of this this sounds weird and i was like well i'm doing it man and so i kept seeing dr ladenheim like twice a week and he

was doing my vitals and my tests and my labs and stuff like that and he's like you know what keep going this is great whatever you're doing is working he's like your cholesterol level's coming way down it's like your nutrition levels are high tata's got everything you need almost yeah that's what that's what people don't realize like it's actually pretty nutritious yeah food they think everyone's got that protein tip with like where you get your protein man and it's like well it's a plant and if i mix this with something else it'll turn into a protein but like it's got a lot of good stuff right here so yeah it it just never it has not been difficult um i i hope anyone out there that's like i've been thinking about going plant-based or i wonder if plant-based the way for me

you know what you give up in like i'm eating a hamburger and i like the way this tastes or i'm eating some turkey or i'm drinking some milk you get back in like oh my god i'm fucking as thin as i was in high school like you know i didn't do this by working out i literally just did it by it's been a year you've kept it off coming up on that year and so it's doable kids like you know and and i think the heart attack has given me a nice like i've always had the platform but it's giving me a chance to tell people useful shit not just like oh i love this movie and it'll make you feel good too now i can impart shit like hey man this is what worked for me i ain't telling you to go vegan

but like if you like the way i look and saying like wow you lost a lot of weight there it is there's an easy way for you to do it man i'm gonna show you the path and you just have to give up a little but you get back so fucking much and you know that's not for me i was going by the path of like i gotta save my life my kid is vegan because she's like i want to save the lives of others so she's a compassionate vegan she's all about the animals and stuff um selfishly i was all about me but But now with enough distance, of course, now it's like, you know, start to open up to that. Oh, my God. Like, I feel so fucking silly for being programmed from such a young age. But what else are they going to tell us?

Like, as you sat there as a kid and be like, but wait a second, we love the dog. Why do we eat the cow? And they're like, well, that's because God made it that way. You know, they just they throw that shit on god and then you just kind of move on but now i'm you know 48 and a vegan and you know maybe not as as uh uh god fearing as i was as a kid it's kind of easy to see that like there's a there's a and i don't want to god be so careful because you don't want to trigger people people get triggered like fuck you vegans and shit like that it's not about that but like i've seen no difference between me and the dog i see no difference between me and the cow other than the fact that i could tell a very good story that's what makes me feel like a scam artist

that's what makes humanity feel like a scam like we just have this one fucking thing we're fast talkers and because of that we don't get eaten it seems so fucking unfair you know what i'm saying like look into the eyes of a cow look into the eyes of a fucking lamb of a turkey for christ's sakes living breathing individual with a soul on inarguably there's a soul at work there but because we tell stories and they can't i'm not just talking about literally telling stories like once upon a time and i'm not talking about just literally using your voice because animals can do that too. But we've, you know, all bought into the story of like, you know, these animals are friends and some of these animals are meant to be eaten.

And that's, that's why they're here. That's the way it is. We have to do it because that's what we have to do to live. It's a little bit of like a blue pill, red pill matrix moment. Yes. Because once you make the switch and what you've experienced and i certainly experienced is you get to the other side of it and you're like wait i was told like i kind of had to do all that stuff yeah it sucks nobody wants to see animals suffer but like that's

what you got to do to live and i'm here to survive and then you're like i actually feel better i weigh what i weighed in high school i feel good all my blood markers everything's better yes like wait what are we doing it's what is that story we've been telling that's what you feel like you hope by example people are gonna like be like oh all right like because that's it it's never gonna come through altruism or compassion or empathy mine didn't mine came from self-service like hey i want to save my life. That's how you get people. And if there are people at death's door, it's very easy to get them. Like, hey, man, go vegan and shit.

But you don't want to wait that long. So what you do is live by example. So when people are like, fuck, man, you look good. What happened? You're like, I went vegan. Get the fuck out of here. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, vegan, man. I just dropped all the animal products.

I didn't have to do anything. It just kind of fell off of me and shit like that people are kind of they want the easiest solution the quickest easiest solution to all their problems and that is the quickest easiest solution to all of your health problems go vegan it's that simple just go green go plant based i swear to you it will fix so many things if not everything as that's no dodge that's no hustle that's the flat out straight up plain fucking truth right so if not everything as that's no dodge that's no hustle that's the flat out straight up plain fucking truth right so if you could pass that on to people like you know in my work early on realize that an audience and i realized some of that audience weren't very

enlightened they were like i was like i was a kid ew like guy kissing gay people ew shit like that i was lucky i had a gay brother man man. So I got to kind of, uh, face all that stuff early on. Right. So when I'm making art now and I realized I got this audience, that's like, ew,

gay people. Suddenly I'm like, I could whip a little fucking wisdom in there. A little enlightenment. Like George Carlin always said, best time to reach people is when they're laughing. That's when they're most open to suggestion. That's when you can implant a new idea.

Cause they'll trust you. Cause they release. He's like, most people are always tight in life, but when they're laughing that's when they're most open to suggestion that's when you can implant a new idea because they'll trust you because they release he's like most people are always tight in life but when they're laughing that's when you see a true individual who they really fucking are because they're no longer putting up their guard they're just like ah that's the best time to hit them with a new idea so in my work i started making jokes about like fucking my main character's wanting to suck dick just make people comfortable with like gay references and stuff like that and that was that wasn't even altruistic that was because my brother was gay and i was like well i hope i don't want to sit through these breeder movies and be bored i gotta throw a little content in for him and stuff but then you realize you're in a position

to enlighten some cats and if they like your shit they're gonna take your ideas a little more seriously and stuff so i honestly believe that i get a wake of bodies behind me who are smarter than before we met or at least a little more enlightened based on the work i've done and granted that's crazy because you look at the work i've done like hey man didn't your movie have a rubber shit monster in it but you can still back door enlighten people which sounds way more sexy than i meant it um while making people laugh and stuff like that so same thing with this shit same thing with veganism like jane silent bob reboot i had to do a new draft of the script because the old draft was all fat jokes and now i'm like well i can't tell those because it ain't gonna make sense so now they're all fucking vegan jokes and i'm putting it into work man like now i'll hit some people and

i know this by experience by what i've put in the work before. And I've watched the trickle down effect. So I'm putting that in the work now. There's a lot of vegan stuff in Jay and Silent Bob reboot. I guarantee you, I'm going to flip some people, you know, and not in a way where I'm bragging about it, but like, it's just going to hit their ears in the right way. Coming in, you know, in, in the middle of a movie or something like that. Yeah. It's cool. And they're going to look at me and go like well shit there's a result there and if they're one of those people that wants to like you know drop some of

their weight it's going to be a an option and once they're there doing it they're going to realize they don't need to go back like yeah it's like like you said before you accept things because like that's just the way it is this way it's always been and then when you step out the matrix when you step out the box and shit, suddenly you're like, oh, there's a completely different way to be. And, you know, it's a useful lesson to learn because you can take it into anything. I was having a notes call the other day about this project we're working on. And the guy, you know, on the other end of the phone, like said some shit triggered me,

not in a shitty way, but just like, you know, looking for changes. Like, well, maybe we do something else. And, you know, my first instinct was like, no no this is what we're doing like this is the story you can't fucking change that like that's the story the in order for everything else to happen this needs to happen this way and then i started thinking about it like no it's not it's a fucking story you make it up as you go along so this guy's point is valid you can change it to that the only reason you're not going to change it is because like you're being willful and you don't want to your attachment you know you're just let go of the ego let go of the attachment and you'll find a whole better place to live it makes me sad not

mad but there are a lot of people online who whenever i put up something about like yeah i'm a vegan or whatnot you get my kid goes through it a lot she'll put up something about compassion for animals and being a vegan and you know fucking you got a bunch of people in the comments going well now i mean now i'm eating twice as much fucking meat because of you number one that's not true like they're not really going to go out and eat twice as much as meat the fact is they probably won't even eat meat that day they're just being shitty for the sake of being shitty but my point is like hey man you want to go out and eat more meat? That's fine. I'm I'll,

I'll see you in a, I'll see you in hell one day. And not because you're a bad person, but just like, you're going to die, man. There's, you're going to die.

Like meat is murder. And, and in two ways, and I don't just mean like you're killing an animal and, and I ain't being political about this. So if you're sitting there going, fuck you, I like to eat hamburgers,

keep eating hamburgers. But there's some weird notion once you get separated from it about like so wait we kill something i put killed things into my body and somehow that's good for me like what am i looking for protein okay where are those things that i'm killing and eating getting it they're getting it from plants why the fuck don't i just eat the fucking plants man because then yeah this shit may taste tasty but you know what you know what i like more than a burger all the shit i put from plants why the fuck don't i just eat the fucking plants man because then yeah this shit may taste tasty but you know what you know what i like more than a burger all the shit i put on a burger i like bread i like ketchup and i like barbecue sauce and i can eat that shit without

a burger and breathing yeah as well so like it's you know i'm i can't i'm not trying to convert people i'm not telling you to leave behind your childhood. Some people have real romantic notions about eating meat, like, cause it's tied in with eating their family at meals and shit like that. My dad used to barbecue and my mom made a pot roast and her chicken was, and I get it. I get it.

But separate from it. You're going to be much better. You have all those memories. Like Penn said in his book, he's like, look, he ate pizza once with the fucking Lou Reed his book he's like look he ate pizza once with the fucking lou reed and he's like you know the rest of my life i'm trying to find a slice as

good as the pizza i ate with lou reed but guess what it's never gonna happen because it was about that experience it was about sitting down with lou reed and having fucking pizza so i'll look for the rest of my life trying to replicate that experience by eating pizza it's never gonna happen so i can let pizza go i've had the best pizza pizza i've ever gotten in my life i ate it with fucking lou reed so everything else now is just kind of a waste of time once you start looking at it like that as opposed to just what you were raised with like here man you eat three times a day that's what you do these are the basic instructions we're given as kids three times a day and eat fucking meat you need meat meat makes you grow and shit and vegetables were always part of it but very small part of it so now it's just different you flip the script and and honestly life is

better i don't say that in any sort of like uh boy i'm pulling one over on them like it's just that simple yeah and i think it's important for people to understand that we're we're malleable you know we're not set in stone so when people say well you know this is what i like you know this is i need this my body's telling it's like that shit changes it does you know and you're allowed to change it and guess what let's say you fucking love eating meat love it but you're willing to fucking take this journey you're like well i'm fucking maybe my health or whatever fucking reason i'm here to tell you meat's never going away it's not like while you fucking give up meat suddenly all the meat in the world is going to disappear and you're like fuck i didn't get to have my last but you have that

thing where you're like now that you don't eat meat anymore you're like oh wait people still do that yeah and not in a shitty way where i'm judging them but i'm just like oh yeah that's right there's that um you know and every once in a while i bring so'm judging them, but I'm just like, oh, yeah, that's right. There's that. You know, and every once in a while I bring some, like I eat a veggie grill every fucking day of my life. Dude, you have people bringing you veggie grill in the Chicago airport. I love it. I'll bring non-vegans or non-vegetarians with me to the restaurant and stuff and they'll eat there. And I'm like, isn't this great? And they're like, bro, you forgot what cheese really tastes like.

I'm like, that's fine because this counts. This is my cheese. Yeah, it is great. And they're like, bro, you forgot what cheese really tastes like. I'm like, that's fine. Because this counts. This is my cheese. Yeah, it's been really good. No complaints. I honestly, knock wood, don't see myself ever backsliding. I'm not as militant as my kid. My kid will, and believe me, I'm militant enough to do no animal products whatsoever. But my kid's the kind of person that's like, in order to make this thing, they filter it through a bone that was once in an animal so i'm not going to eat that thing this has

honey in it honey is stolen from a bee so i'm not going to eat that my kid goes to the extremes so you know i'm like kiddo i i you know i'm i'm okay with taking bunny honey from a bee i i know until they tell us it's wrong or bad. If it outs that that is what's been destroying the bee community and not cell phones, the fact that we've been taking honey all this time, then I'll definitely give up some honey. But God bless her, man. She's got a good heart, dude. And you're only one year in, man.

She wasn't raised with faith. You're only one year in. I know. I'm excited to get the possibility. We'll see what's going on next year. I do want to point out, though, like that kid, big, fat, compassionate heart, was not raised with one iota of religion. I was. So it makes sense when I'm empathetic and stuff, because I was told from a young age that Jesus and blah, blah, blah.

But this kid, her mother wouldn't let her go near a church. She's like, I didn't let her join any organization, won't let her be a priest. Empathy is not a function of doctrine. It's not, in the least. This kid's got a bigger heart than most fucking catholics that i went to mass with throughout most of my life man she's got more empathy for human beings and other living things particularly the small further things uh than most people i've ever met and that didn't come from a holy place but it did it didn't come i shouldn't

say it didn't come from a religious place but came from a holy place she considers things sacred even though she's not a part of some organization that says this is this and that is that you can find spirituality in this life don't have to adhere to or subscribe to or fit into the boxes that anyone else has put in front of you my parents i love them to death but you know their parents said this is what you do And then they passed it on to us and stuff. And thankfully, my wife broke the chain. She was like, look, I don't believe in that stuff. And I don't want you forcing that on my kid. If she wants to grow up and embrace that, that'll be a choice for her one day.

And I always told my wife, I was like, man, you don't raise a kid with religion. They're going to grow up and they become a Jesus freak because the pendulum is going to swing the other way. And she never did. But she's a really wonderful person with more empathy than most quote-unquote Christians that I know. So I feel like my wife was right to keep her out of it, man. Because that kid developed just fine,

better than fucking most people that go through that organization that I went through. Which, again, ain't me shitting on the organization organization i know they've done a lot of good historically and stuff but we all know they've got fault yeah well there's a divine design to this the child becomes the teacher yes you know and you've you've that's why i had a kid so she would teach me to save my life i'm that stupid right it's a it's a comic book it is you know you're your own superhero in this narrative but you made a conscious decision to kind of shoulder this mantle of sharing this experience. You could have been quietly kind of doing this, but not, you know, taking advantage of the microphone in front of you to speak to this.

It helps keep you honest if everybody's going through the journey with you and knows your intention. So there I was telling people, like, I'm going vegan. You know, you got to put it out there and suddenly and everyone you meet afterwards they see you eating any meat they're like bro i thought you went vegan aren't you a vegan bro so soon you know that's the first part you got to throw your hat over the wall name it and claim it and stuff so that's me going i'm gonna do this and then losing the weight i kept sharing it because well a it's evident but b that kind of support people going you look good like that makes you want to keep going and stuff like that but also i'm just a content person like you know i do as so many podcasts i'm always on stage somewhere talking i'm trying to write shit i need

content and that's a big part of my life for me to ignore that or not share it with others would like that make me a poor storyteller like i'd be leaving a big fat pointed arrow right in the quiver and stuff so being able to talk about that is good it just it also like you're hitting people like just on the business level you're hitting people you don't normally hit you're getting people listening to you who wouldn't give a fuck about the work you do like clerks ew that's not for me but they see me on colbert talking about the heart attack and they're like, oh, shit, that's interesting. Oh, I like this guy.

He's being honest and blah, blah, blah. So it gives me another opportunity to find an audience and help an audience. And those are, you know, one is an altruistic thing. I want to help people. I want to be of service in this life. There's nothing more beautiful than living in service of others. But I'm also selfish and, you know know self-involved so it's like what do i get out of this right well in the art project that is kevin smith and his life and this

is just another story that you can tell that's it and oddly enough hopefully knock wood you know in a couple years the heart attack is just background noise like hopefully i don't have another one i just watched that movie vice about dick cheney last night who knew that dude had like fucking 19 heart attacks and i'm like oh my god i don't want to go that route so yeah hopefully until the next heart attack and hopefully there's never one never another one like this might just hopefully my life keeps being interesting or i do enough shit where the heart attack is just like oh yeah and he also had a heart attack once but you don't want it to ever define you like uh he made clerks and then he had a heart attack and that's all he is from now on but share it like and the walrus movie yes there's that a lot of people assume i had the heart attack

because of the world probably but like he went nuts and his heart broke but yeah man sharing it like a i can't help it but b if others can get something out of it, that's wonderful. That's the idea. All right, man. Well, let's wind this down in terms of other people getting something out of it. If somebody is listening to this and they are inspired by your story and your example, like, man, I don't want to have a heart attack, but I'm a little bit intimidated by this leap of faith into the big V, you know, I'm a little bit intimidated by this leap of faith into the big V, you know.

If you don't want to have a heart attack, the big V is the easiest way to not have a heart attack that I've seen. And I've had nutritionists say that as well. And I've had doctors. I mean, look, you won't find a doctor that will tell you like being vegan. That ain't going to help. Like, you know, there's some doctors like Dr. Leidenheim, who saved my life, was like, you don't need to give up meat. There's nothing wrong with little meatenheim who saved my life was like you don't need to give up meat there's nothing wrong with little meat in your life and i'm like that's

awesome good to hear my kid was mad about that she was just like how dare he is a doctor i was like that doctor just saved my life she's like but he's telling you you can eat meat still i was like because he's right i could if i wanted to it wouldn't necessarily kill me it doesn't kill people but i'm not going to that's the choice i'm making and stuff and you know you want you want others to realize that as well it's possible and if you're worried about your body if you're worried about your health and stuff you know on two levels if you're worried that oh my god uh i look like shit going vegan is going to help that and if you're more worried rightfully so about i wonder what fucking is going on inside my body. Something we rarely think about because we don't see it, right?

We don't know what the inner workings are and stuff. It's good for that as well. It's like nothing bad comes out of this unless what you think is bad is, oh, but I got to give up fucking turkey, chicken, steak, whatever the fuck. You know, sometimes in life you give up something you get back so much more i'm not you know we've talked about religion in the bible and stuff and while i you know have particular feelings about how people use that book i do like that book quite a bit it's full of great fucking useful tips and shit like that and uh one of the things that uh somebody said in the bible was whatever you give out comes back to you sevenfold you know

and when they said it back then people took it literally like all right i'm gonna give you a dollar and give me seven bucks but it's figuratively it's what you put out you get back what you put out there into the fucking world and stuff so i like to put this out there in the world if it gives somebody a chance to maybe rectify their shit and change and make make their journey a little bit longer or start their journey where it makes them go like, this is the shit. Like,

you know, I had no idea that being a vegan brings the poet out in you. You never know. Like, think about it. If you're standing there going, yeah, that all sounds good,

but change is fucking hard and stuff. You've changed before. We're human beings, man. We're so very capable of fucking change but do what i did like if you're really sitting there and you're like i don't know except the heart attack part yeah skip that just give it fuck a year give it six months just tell yourself like look i've done whatever i've wanted to do for my whole fucking life let me try being a vegan for

six months let me see if i can do it take it as a personal challenge and shit. And at the end of that six months, if you want to go back to eating meat, God bless, go ahead. Chances are you will see such a positive fucking impact, such improbable change that you've never experienced by all the other ways you've tried to get to this route and stuff that you may just stay. That's what I did.

I'm still here and I'll stay because I'm like, I can't argue with the fucking results. And also, I'm not, I don't want to just make it about results oriented. Shit I eat tastes good. I'm satisfied. I'm not sitting there going, man, I have to do without.

I eat a lot of tasty things. Yeah, it's not martyrdom. No. You know. It's smarterdom. Smarter, I like that. Thank you. I'm going to steal it.

I'm a writer. Take it. All right, man. Super inspiring, man. Did you get anything out of it i think you got a you got a you got this down to a science like you know you went on a journey doing it a little bit longer than you yes but uh i mean you know i had a i had a similar transformation and that transformation was not just physical it was mental emotional and spiritual and spiritual. And it continues. It always does.

And I continue to learn. And I'm not a perfect human being. And I'm flawed. And I fuck up. And I'm an asshole. And all of that. Humanity, writ large. But I will vouch for what you said, which is there is a transformation that takes place

when you remove these things from your plate. And what that boils down to i can't say is it is it you know something beyond the senses i don't know you know all i know is i feel better i function better it changed my life it changed what i do for a living and when you say everything about how it is you mean like like there is we're not taking life like this is what i asked you about earlier positive like you know has have you had you know what is your spiritual perspective on this like i i believe that when i and this sounds crazy and you can call me crazy i don't care but like when you remove it and it's part of this sevenfold thing like when you remove violence i agree with you completely there is an emotional and spiritual effect or impact that has had on me

i i would agree with that 100 and i've i've always been a fairly empathetic person with a emotional and spiritual effect or impact that has had on me. I would agree with that a hundred percent. And I've, I've always been a fairly empathetic person with a deep love, deep abiding love for animals. But I didn't do this. I'm not your daughter. I didn't get into it to save me.

I never thought that that would be important to me or that I would care, but it's kind of weird that it's like, I mean, this sounds kooky and, and you know, artsy, but like there's something to be said for removing blood from your life it washes clean like and i'm not i ain't trying to make people i don't think you are either we're not trying to make people feel guilty and stuff like that but like there's a pretty fucking horrific step that goes between a living creature and your stomach and you know we got a bunch of a lot of there's a lot of step that goes between a living creature and your stomach and you know

we got a bunch of a lot of there's a lot of effort that goes into preventing you from connecting with that truth yeah and seeing how fucking horrible it all is and thinking about it like i was told as a kid like oh well you know that's god made it that way no that ain't look i'm not sure there's an existence of god to begin with but if there is a god a damn skippy no he didn't come up with the meat industry um so yeah you're right there is a certain consciousness that comes along with it and it doesn't make make one better but it just well honestly physically it does make one better it doesn't make you a better person than somebody else just means you got into some place that a lot of people can get to if they're willing

to take a step. It's like that hand in the box, like, right? You put the monkey's got his hand in the box holding onto a banana and he can't escape the box. And all the monkey has to do is let go of the banana and then he can pull his hand out of the box. Everybody's holding onto that banana and shit. You and me let go.

And we let go for different reasons. We didn't even do it altruistically. It wasn't even like, man, man i'm gonna be a better human but we found ourselves being better because of it because of simple choices we made to save our own lives yeah and i stand in judgment of nobody i certainly don't feel like i'm better than anybody else on any kind of pedestal and it is i do feel physically feel better far from it for me to tell anybody how to live their life right you know i'm here to share possible experience exactly that's it take from it what you would like discard the rest and be your own experiment in an n of one you know try it like you said six months 30 days one week whatever it is and see for yourself give more than a week though yeah anybody can do a week

i think yeah that's like lent like give it give it i like how you said six months i think that's a commitment that's a man up challenge and it also the six you need six months to change the brain chemistry on anything if you're an alcoholic if through a romance like that's gone bad or ended or some six months is how you change your mindset so if you take if you do it for two months you know you may be like oh this is good but yeah i still like this other shit six months gives how you change your mindset. So if you take, if you do it for two months, you know, you may be like, oh, this is good, but yeah, I still like this other shit. Six months gives you enough distance and enough time and enough body purification where suddenly you will be thinking a little more clearly.

But, but again, I'm not, this isn't about like, we're right and you're wrong. This is just what we've both experienced. And we're just passing that on. And if it helps you, oh my God, welcome to the party and stuff. And if you don't hear it now, maybe you hear it two years from now. Maybe you hear it after you've been on the fucking table and stuff like that.

It's never too late until it is too late. But give it a shot. Don't leave this world without fucking trying six months of doing something that you never thought you could do. A, you'll prove something to yourself. You prove to yourself that you're a stronger individual than you ever possibly imagined. And B, you could drastically and vastly change your life in a positive way. And very few things, you know, you watch TV and they're always selling you the opportunity of changing your life and stuff like that.

This is, this don't cost you anything. And some people like oh it's expensive to eat healthy bullshit doesn't have to be it's cheaper yeah to eat healthy like i'm not saying like whole foods yes you know they've they've definitely charged more than the average bear but you ain't got a shop just there and if you're reducing the amount you eat anyway it's going to be cheaper period i'm telling you it's all connected you're going to have more money you're going to feel better in life it's crazy to be cheaper, period. I'm telling you, it's all connected. You're going to have more money. You're going to feel better in life.

It's crazy. The positives that come out of being a vegan. The only negative is every once in a while, somebody who's not a vegan is like, fuck you, vegan. Every once in a while? Yes, every day. Somebody says. I haven't scrolled through your app mentions, but there's a little bit of that. Most people are,

they're kinder to me. So more like, hey bro, more meat for me. I'm like, all right, that's how you want to deal with it. Fine.

They can have it. Thank you for having me, man. I rarely get to talk about health. It's so fun for a guy like me to talk about. Super inspiring, man. Thanks, man.

Cool. Peace. Peace. That was it. We did it. Kevin Smith, ladies and gentlemen, did you guys enjoy that i really like that guy that is an incredibly powerful and inspiring story uh let kevin know what you thought of today's exchange by hitting him up on twitter or instagram at that kevin smith uh he's

also pretty active on facebook as well facebook.com forward slash yes, that Kevin Smith, I guess is his page there. And you can check out his many podcasts at smodcast.com and keep an eye out for the new Jay and Silent Bob reboot movie, which is being filmed right now. I think it's coming out in October. If you are struggling with your diet in the way that Kevin once was, if you're really desiring of finally mastering your plate, but feel like you don't have the skill in the kitchen or the time, I cannot stress enough how much I know for a fact our Plant Power Meal Planner can help you. It truly is an extraordinary product. We work very hard to create, and it solves a very simple, basic problem, making nutritious eating convenient and

delicious. When you sign up at meals.richroll.com, you get access to thousands of plant-based recipes. You get grocery lists and grocery delivery in most metropolitan areas. You get access to our amazing team of nutrition coaches seven days a week. And right now, we got a special deal, a special offer, $20 off through April 13th when you use the code POWER20 at checkout. So check it out, meals.richroll.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu on my website, richroll.com. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the podcast, there are a couple simple ways to do that. Just tell your friends about it, share the enthusiasm, take a screen

grab of it and share it on your favorite social media platform. Tag me. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube, on Google Podcasts, on Spotify. Spotify, making waves in the podcast space. And you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin, who usually, typically, film and edit the podcast.

But today's exchange with Kevin was audio only. So look forward to the next episode to get back to YouTube. Jessica Miranda for her beautiful graphics and visual imagery that accompanies the show. DK, my man, David Kahn, Advertiser Relationships. Thank you, DK. He's sitting right across from me. He's not saying anything. You're welcome. And theme music, as always, by NLM. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here in a couple days with another highly anticipated, hotly anticipated episode with my man Guru Singh. Another episode of Guru Corner. Until then, peace.

Plants. Namaste. Namaste. Thank you.