Kevin Smith

Filmmaker, writer, and podcasting pioneer Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma, Jay & Silent Bob) sits down with Andrew Santino for a wildly honest and hilarious episode of Whiskey Ginger. Kevin shares stories behind the making of Dogma, his friendship with George Carlin, and how he gave Jason Lee his first-ever acting role in Mallrats. This one’s got everything: cult classics, career reinvention, spiritual growth, and a few outrageous rants in between. 🎬 If you’ve ever quoted Clerks, debated Dogma, or cried during Chasing Amy This episode is for you. 37 D**KS!? LOL 📺 Watch now and hit subscribe for more deep, weird, and funny convos every week on Whiskey Ginger with Andrew Santino. #KevinSmith #WhiskeyGinger #AndrewSantino #Clerks #ComedyPodcast #JayAndSilentBob #IndieFilm #PodcastInterview #Smodcast #dogma ==========================================================Sponsor Whiskey Ginger: https://public.liveread.io/media-kit/whiskeyginger SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS HOF BET USE PROMO CODE: WHISKEY TO GET A 7 DAY FREE TRIAL & 50% OFF YOUR FIRST MONTH! Download The App Today! SQUARESPACE GET 10% OFF YOUR ORDER https://squarespace.com/whiskey LIGHTSTRIKE HARD REFRESHER AN EXCELLENT SOURCE OF 5% ALCOHOL https://drinklightstrike.com KICKOFF GET YOUR FIRST MONTH FOR $1 https://getkikoff.com/whiskey ======================================= Follow Andrew Santino: https://www.instagram.com/cheetosantino/ https://twitter.com/CheetoSantino Follow Whiskey Ginger: https://www.instagram.com/whiskeygingerpodcas thttps://twitter.com/whiskeygingerpodcast Produced and edited by Joe Faria https://www.instagram.com/itsjoefaria Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Santino?

  What up, Whiskey Ginger fans? Welcome back to the show. If it's your first time joining the show, welcome to the show. Man, thank you for the journey. We're in the middle of the summer. We're cruising along. We've got a lot of great episodes coming up, and I'm traveling a whole bunch, including to London and Dublin. Me and Bobby Lee are playing London and Dublin July 18th and 19th. Go to badfriendspod.com or andresantino.com. Either way, badfriendspod.com to come see me and Bobby Lee in London and Dublin one time only. We may not come back together. Who knows? So, check it out. Let's go to the episode.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  In here, we pour whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  Who are that creature in the ginger beard? It's sturdy and ginger. Like vampires, the ginger gene is a curse.

• 0:39Speaker 03

  Gingers are beautiful. You owe me $5 for the whiskey and $75 for the horse. Ginger's, oh hell no.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  This whiskey is excellent. Ginger. I like gingers.

• 0:52Andrew Santino?

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Whiskey Ginger. My guest today is one of my favorite people on earth. I say that wrong. My guest, but I mean, once again, today it is legendary Kevin Smith.

• 0:59Speaker 04

  I feel like we're wasting our time here. Why aren't we in an auction house? Do that again. That was so fast.

• 1:04Andrew Santino?

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Whiskey Ginger. My guest today is one of my favorite people on earth. I say that wrong. My guest, but I mean, once again, today it's Kevin Smith.

• 1:09Speaker 04

  I mean, now, now-

• 1:10Andrew Santino?

  45 to 79.

• 1:11Speaker 04

  Yes, I'm telling you, man. Like, if this don't work out, this podcasting thing, although there's not pictures of you, seems to be working out.

• 1:18Andrew Santino?

  Fan-made.

• 1:19Speaker 04

  Hog calling and auction calling.

• 1:21Andrew Santino?

  I could do it. I could do it. I mean, my career is struggling. Hollywood is not calling, so I should do calling.

• 1:27Speaker 04

  Hold my beer. Fuck. Well, the problem is I keep showing Hollywood, they're like, what do you want to do next? I'm like, Clerks 3. They're like, fuck, another Clerks. So, they've lost interest in me a long time ago. Good news is I didn't wait for Hollywood, or whatever that is, to start my career. I started on my own. Like, I'm an indie filmmaker at heart, so even when the business has no use for me, and there are many years running in a row where they have no use for me, I still find a way to do what I do.

• 1:54Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, no, you've done a great job, by the way, for people that are-

• 1:57Speaker 04

  Let's talk about that fucking jersey, man.

• 1:58Andrew Santino?

  Well, I, I mean, I wore it for you.

• 2:01Speaker 04

  Look at that.

• 2:02Andrew Santino?

  I wore it for you. Well, here's the deal.

• 2:03Speaker 04

  Copper and the blue.

• 2:03Andrew Santino?

  I just played Edmonton, and they gave me this as a gift. Edmonton was one of the first cities-

• 2:08Speaker 04

  Where did you play at Edmonton?

• 2:10Andrew Santino?

  I played a casino, but I usually play, uh, last time we were there, do you remember where we played?

• 2:15Speaker 04

  The synagogue, the temple?

• 2:16Andrew Santino?

  I played, yeah, there's two synagogues I play, yeah.

• 2:18Speaker 04

  There's a place there that I've played, no, there's a place that's normally like a temple, but then on the weekends.

• 2:24Andrew Santino?

  It's a venue.

• 2:25Speaker 04

  What is the name of it? But I played there a few times. I love Edmonton. I was a big Oilers fan, not when it was happening.

• 2:33Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 2:33Speaker 04

  With Gretzky and stuff. Years later, I became a, a legacy Oilers fan and stuff. So I spent a long time doing things in the city. It's a great place.

• 2:41Andrew Santino?

  Alberta, Alberta is a special, has a special place in my heart. I headlined there young. I love it.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  Really? So when you were a kid, they were like, we'll take you up here.

• 2:48Andrew Santino?

  They took me on when I was too early.

• 2:50Speaker 04

  Look about you.

• 2:51Andrew Santino?

  Do I?

• 2:51Speaker 04

  They're like, oh, you could pass. They probably looked at you and they're like, come home, son. Straight out, straight out Regina.

• 2:57Andrew Santino?

  Get out here, eh? Get up here and do your, do your gig, bud. Get up there and, and go for it, eh?

• 3:01Speaker 04

  They're like, this is not the red of the red and the white, but never blue.

• 3:05Andrew Santino?

  It's pretty matchy to this, man. I mean, I'm pretty close.

• 3:07Speaker 04

  You are blending. It's almost like a green screen effect.

• 3:11Andrew Santino?

  I'm gonna disappear.

• 3:11Speaker 04

  There you are, right?

• 3:12Andrew Santino?

  It's also game one is tonight. I mean, I know this podcast will be out after, but.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  And it's Florida versus, the Oilers made it?

• 3:22Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, man.

• 3:23Speaker 04

  That's the second year in a row where they got pretty damn deep.

• 3:25Andrew Santino?

  This is a big deal. Nobody wants Florida to win. You can't, a hockey team from Florida is crazy.

• 3:30Speaker 04

  But they've done it before.

• 3:31Andrew Santino?

  I know. That's what's even more nuts. Tampa Bay was the same.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  We're already talking about a dynasty team. This is way more sports than I'm sure most people want to talk about, but this is a dynasty team to begin with. They won three cups with Gretzky, one without. So they got four cups of their name. They got close on two other occasions, maybe three. This could be the moment.

• 3:51Andrew Santino?

  This could be it.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  This, and is Connor McDavid still?

• 3:54Andrew Santino?

  He's the man. Probably one of the greatest of all time. The greatest of all time. No, one of them.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  Jesus's moment. This, this could be it. You got me excited. I pulled my head out of the hockey world. I've had my head lodged firmly up the ass of dogma for the last month and change. So I haven't been paying attention to much. And I did know that Florida ma- made it in because I saw it in my feed, but I didn't know they were going head to head with the Oilers.

• 4:15Andrew Santino?

  The Oil Boys.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  I, that's an easy pick for me.

• 4:18Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, it's Edmonton all the way for you.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  All the way.

• 4:19Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, there's no chance.

• 4:20Speaker 04

  You know, I say that with a mom who lives in Florida, but still, like, to see Canada hoist a cup again, a Canadian team, for somebody who's not from Canada, but does appreciate Canadana, it would be meaningful.

• 4:34Andrew Santino?

  It would be, right?

• 4:35Speaker 04

  You know what I'm saying?

• 4:35Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, and mom is in Florida. Shout out to mom. We love mom. We always love mom. We love mom.

• 4:39Speaker 04

  Without mom, we wouldn't be here.

• 4:40Andrew Santino?

  That's exactly right.

• 4:41Speaker 04

  She reminds me of that all the time.

• 4:42Andrew Santino?

  Uh, for people that are perhaps too young, I do have some youngish fans on the show.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  The uninitiated? Who am I?

• 4:48Andrew Santino?

  You are, you are.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  Most of them are like, wait, is this the guy from King of Queens?

• 4:53Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  That's the other Kevin.

• 4:55Andrew Santino?

  No, you are such a profound influence in most of my

• 5:01Speaker 04

  That's why I left my house and drove over here to hear words like that.

• 5:04Andrew Santino?

  You are. I mean, honestly, your movies shaped my comedic youth, my young adulthood. The way we spoke to each other, the way we joked to each other.

• 5:15Speaker 04

  Do you know?

• 5:16Andrew Santino?

  That was so important to our, uh, seeing something that, as young guys that wanted to get into comedy and make stuff, we were like, that's, we want to do that. We want to fuck around and do that stuff. So it was kind of like that gave us this little like, oh, we could do shit like that. You can be with your friends, write these beautiful, funny, goofy, weird scenes and make, I mean, Clerks was such a big part of our youth and our life and chasing Amy. It's like, all these things and Marantz, they became our entire packaging of who we became.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Let me tell you something.

• 5:48Andrew Santino?

  All right, get the fuck out of here.

• 5:49Speaker 04

  I know, I'm done. I'm never gonna be better than that. Jesus Christ. I've run the risk of ruining all that by saying something stupid like this. How the fuck are you not playing Archie?

• 5:58Andrew Santino?

  I know, dude.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  Like, fucking, this is the Archie movie I want to make where he's just like, you know, it was neither Betty nor Veronica. It was Jughead the whole time.

• 6:08Andrew Santino?

  It was Jughead the whole time.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  And it's about two dudes who are like deeply in love, they'll never fuck. That's basically Clerks.

• 6:14Andrew Santino?

  That is.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  I feel like you, who would be your Jughead? Before we get back to me, I gotta know.

• 6:19Andrew Santino?

  Who would be my Jughead?

• 6:20Speaker 05

  I mean Bobby.

• 6:21Andrew Santino?

  Bobby is in Bobby Lee is an easy pick. I mean, but give me, you know.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Bro, and that helps.

• 6:25Andrew Santino?

  He is my best friend.

• 6:26Speaker 04

  We don't want two white guys in this picture. So that's a good fucking thing. Put a crown on him.

• 6:30Andrew Santino?

  Right. Cock it. Yeah. Maybe it'll be, maybe we could.

• 6:33Speaker 05

  I could see Glassman being.

• 6:34Speaker 04

  Are you guys tight?

• 6:35Andrew Santino?

  Yeah. Oh, he's my best. He is my best friend.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  He's in a movie. I'm in a movie with him, but he's in a movie with my friend. He's in Logic's movie.

• 6:42Andrew Santino?

  Oh, yeah, I know.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  Which is playing at.

• 6:44Andrew Santino?

  I was supposed to be in it.

• 6:45Speaker 04

  You were gonna be in it as well?

• 6:46Andrew Santino?

  I know. I'm really sad. Yeah.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  What scene? Cause I was the editor. I exec produced it and I was the editor of the movie.

• 6:50Andrew Santino?

  He told me you were doing it and he called me. I couldn't do it. I was working.

• 6:53Speaker 04

  It debuts at Tribeca next week. Uh, uh, cler- uh, clerks. You can't tell. I say that word 26 times a day. Uh, Dogma comes out June 5th in theaters everywhere. 2,000 screens across the country. June 6th, I'm gonna be at the Tribeca Film Festival as Logic debuts his first film. Kids, this picture is called Paradise Records. It's fucking beautiful. Six months from now, a lot of people are gonna be talking about it and shit. Um, where, do you remember where you were gonna be? Were you gonna be in the Bobby Lee scene?

• 7:23Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 04

  So you were gonna be getting baked with Logic, Logic's dad.

• 7:27Andrew Santino?

  Yeah. I screwed up. Well, I had to work and he was like, I can't do it.

• 7:30Speaker 04

  This is why you're not playing Archie, bitch. Like, it starts with a Logic movie and then.

• 7:34Andrew Santino?

  I know.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  You get fucking Return to Riverdale.

• 7:37Andrew Santino?

  I'm not doing the right things, man. Well, the kid in the Riverdale, they dyed, they dyed his hair, right? He wasn't even a, uh.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 7:42Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, that really pissed me off.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  Motherfucker in the, in Riverdale from CW?

• 7:45Andrew Santino?

  That pissed me off.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  Not only not a redhead, uh, from what I remember, and this is not being me, you know, being fucking MAGA, but not an American.

• 7:52Andrew Santino?

  He's not one of us?

• 7:54Speaker 04

  I don't think so. If I remember correctly, I believe, can we look that up?

• 7:57Andrew Santino?

  America first.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  From Australia.

• 7:59Andrew Santino?

  He's an Australian, the kid from Riverdale?

• 8:01Speaker 04

  And when I heard that, I was like, we can't have a Superman. We can't have a Batman. It's always some Brit and stuff, but I think he came from some other place too.

• 8:08Andrew Santino?

  They keep taking it away.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  All of our comic book icons.

• 8:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's from Auckland, New Zealand.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  There it is. The Menzy right there.

• 8:14Andrew Santino?

  He's not even from Australia? He's from the other one?

• 8:17Speaker 04

  How can he inhabit the soul of Archie? And yet did for like fucking how many seasons in true?

• 8:21Andrew Santino?

  Apparently he did a great job, by the way. So, you know, kudos to that kid.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Kudos to him.

• 8:24Andrew Santino?

  But wait, back it up. Dogma?

• 8:25Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 8:26Andrew Santino?

  You're re-releasing Dogma?

• 8:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:28Andrew Santino?

  In 2000 theaters.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  We're calling it the 25th anniversary. Technically it's the 26th, but like the Catholic Church, we're stretching the truth a little bit.

• 8:36Andrew Santino?

  No, no, no.

• 8:37Speaker 04

  To tell a story, yeah.

• 8:37Andrew Santino?

  No, no, no.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Have faith, kids.

• 8:39Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  Have faith this 25th anniversary.

• 8:41Andrew Santino?

  New Pope. That's how they trick you.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  New Pope sweeps clean, as they say, so now's the time to bring it out. We started our tour, because I've been touring for like the last month, which is fucking beautiful. Talk about an easy sell. Easier to sell Dogma than it is to sell, like, me and Jay had just come off of, uh, we toured in February, the Oral Sex Tour, me and Jason, who is the guy I'm always standing next to, professionally or personally. So, we went out and did the Oral Sex Tour, A U R A L S E C T S. And, man, we had to, I was putting, fucking tweeting and Instagramming, storying and TikToking, right up till showtimes, getting asses in seats. Dogma? Like, we did, we're doing a round of shows, they all sold out instantly, so I was like, I'm already in a place, add another show.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  That sold out as well. So, every night on the Dogma Tour, easy sell, because it's nostalgia.

• 9:32Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 04

  People are like, oh, fuck, I saw this movie with my grandmother when I was a kid and she loved it. I saw this movie with a lady I got three kids with, it's your fucking fault. And so, like, easy sell, and then I get to come out afterwards and victory lap. So, you're not talking about like, fuck, I gotta come up with like an hour of new material and shit. I've been telling Dogma stories since 1999, so it was like, oh my god. I go out Q and A style, but, you know, you get to talk about whatever you want to talk about. So, somebody asks the Dogma questions, which we just watched Dogma. I'm loaded for bear.

• 10:03Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  With stories I've been telling forever. So, what an easy month. Like, 20 cities I did when all said and done. Two shows a night, in Jersey I did three shows because I own my own movie theater there. We were able to sell a little bit more, because it's like, see it in my theater. And it was absolute bliss. Now, me and Jay are going back out on the Oral Sex Tour Part Two. And, fuck, selling tickets is just hard when you don't have like, hey, I'm following Dogma. You know, but, but they were getting a killer value for Dogma, it's like 50 bucks a ticket. You see this old ass two hour movie, but then I would come out and do a two hour Q and A afterwards.

• 10:39Andrew Santino?

  Two hours?

• 10:39Speaker 04

  Four fucking hours.

• 10:40Andrew Santino?

  That's a long time.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  I love the sound of my own voice.

• 10:43Andrew Santino?

  You want headphones? Should we give them headphones?

• 10:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, fucking, go away, I'm good, I got this. Um, so, it has been absolute fucking bliss, man. And now it comes out just everywhere for people to see it, because the tour was like, number one, we could make good money. But, number two, it's a way to promote the movie before it just hits screens, June 5th, everywhere. So, it is coming out again, man, and, and... How lovely to stand behind something old. You know, generally speaking, I gotta go out there with something new all the time. You gotta convince people that you're still worth their fucking time, you're still relevant or something like that. So like even a couple of years ago, we did Clerks Three and it's like, at least it's got Clerks in the title. Oh yeah, there's a three, ignore that part and shit. But still, like, you know, you're asking people to take a chance on something they don't know.

• 11:28Andrew Santino?

  Sure.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  They know Clerks, they don't know what Clerks Three is gonna be like. And a lot of them were like, why'd you kill the fucking one guy? Dogma? Everybody knows what it is. So every night I'd be like, how many people have seen Dogma before? And you know, wah! I was like, all right, how many people have never seen it in a movie theater? And then there would be a lot of people, because a lot of people just saw it on home video. But then I'd always ask, how many people have never seen this movie before tonight? And under two percent, but there would definitely be at least ten people clapping their hands and shit. To which point I'd be like, why the fuck would you overpay to see a movie you've never seen before?

• 11:59Andrew Santino?

  Cause you, you're there.

• 12:01Speaker 04

  I guess.

• 12:01Andrew Santino?

  It's for you, man.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  They were dragged with some parent to whom the movie meant something.

• 12:05Andrew Santino?

  Sure.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  So I become this legacy thing that people pass on. Something that in the beginning of my career, I never planned for or thought about. Like, oh man, maybe one day people like my shit so much, they'll give me to their kids. But I understand it because I was raised that way. My father gave me George Carlin. That was a gift from my father to be like, you can handle this. At age nine, he gave me Class Clown.

• 12:24Andrew Santino?

  And you got to work with him.

• 12:26Speaker 04

  Eventually.

• 12:26Andrew Santino?

  Which is insane to me.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  Aggregated to, I mean, I made, I'm not gonna say, I made that happen. The universe is kind. But I did on Dogma go like, I want George Carlin for Cardinal Glick. And reached out, we found his manager's number, this guy named Jerry. I called him up, I said, hey man, it's Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier. We made Clerks. And he goes, I don't know what that is. And I was like, well then you ain't gonna know the second movie at all, Mall Rats, nobody saw it. He goes, nope. I said, well, we got this movie now, Chasing Amy, it's got Buzz and stuff. He goes, never heard of it. And I was like, all right, well, I said, we did co-executive produce Good Will Hunting. And he goes, Ben and Matt, I love those guys. And I was like, all right, man, well, we got the next Ben and Matt movie. We're making it, we want George to be in it. He goes, you want George to be a comedian in your movie? I said, no. I want him to play a role. He's, I want him to act. He goes, what role would he play? I said, he'd play Catholic Cardinal. He goes, fuck, George will love that shit.

• 13:12Speaker 04

  So he was like, send me a script. I was like, I'll do you one better. I'm gonna be on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, back when he was on NBC. So I said, I'm the second guest, George's first guest, I'll bring the fucking script. And he goes, I'll introduce you to George with the ball rolling and shit. And I couldn't wait, I was gonna meet my fucking childhood hero, man, like, and when you're a kid who loves your parent, like, I know there are people out there that are like, I hated my fucking parents. I, I love my parents, they were really cool people. We didn't have this super tight relationship like I got with my kid, but I fucking have so much respect for him, even as a kid, I was like, these motherfuckers have no money, and they figured out how to raise three kids on a postal fucking employee salary, a gov salary and stuff.

• 13:53Speaker 04

  And still take us places, we went on like cool vacations, like, my father, I think because he worked at the post office, to keep him from going postal and fucking killing people. He would go on vacation once a year and we got to go as well, and so he was like, I wanna do this, I wanna see this. My father wanted to like see the world, so we saw most of America when I was a kid, even though we were fucking poor and shit. So, growing up, that dude, he, he's, he means something to me, and not in that fucking like, you know, I love my daddy and shit. I just, he's my father's mystery, he's inscrutable as a, as a, you know, fucking Iranian film to me. I, I could never figure him out, cause he never, we never sat down and had a conversation like this. He was a seventies dad, very closed off, you just respected them and shit like that.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  But I, I saw him light up, watching Carlin. If you ever wanna know who somebody truly is, watch comedy with him. Cause you'll see what makes him laugh, and you'll see like, not just their, you know, all their, how their intelligence level, but their empathy level as well. It teaches you a lot about a motherfucker, and for somebody who wasn't sharing a lot, watching my father watch George Carlin taught me more about my father than my ever, father ever taught me about himself. You know what I'm saying, he wasn't that kinda guy. But watching him fucking, what he laughed at, what he thought was funny, the shit that I didn't understand, which I would then go look up independently, long before there was an internet and shit. It made me smarter, and also made me like, figure him out a little bit more. So, my father loved George Carlin.

• 15:21Speaker 04

  And I loved my father, so it was a good bet that I was probably gonna grow up loving George Carlin, and I did, and so. I got to make a movie one day, and then I made another, made another, and then felt good when we were making the fourth one, I was like, we gotta get this motherfucker. So his guy was like, you're gonna meet him at Conan. I said, this is great. I hang up the phone. Between the time I hang up the phone. And I'm gonna be on Conan, George's wife passes away. Rather suddenly. So you'd imagine, and you would, he'd be forgiven and be like, I ain't going to fucking do some. Late show, fuck this. He still went. And it's, you know, loo- number one, he was a professional. Number two, uh, his wife ran his life. And so his wife was probably the one that set up that. A hundred percent, right.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  I think there was no chance he was gonna miss it, because, especially like when I met him later on and when he had a conversation with me, so. He did go do the, the, the show that night. He didn't do any of the material he'd been doing in his recent stand-up special. He did a much older desk piece where he could sit down and read from papers. And he was still funny, cause he's George Carlin, but everybody in the audience knew his wife died. And so you could tell, you know, again, not like he wasn't funny, but you could tell something was off. And the fact that he wasn't going up there and doing his current material communicated, look, I'm here, but I'm not here. So I was like, you know, I saw Jerry that night, and I was like, dude, this seems like the worst time to be like, hi, I'm Silent Bob, you know?

• 16:48Speaker 04

  So I was like, just, here's the script, you give it to him at your leisure and shit. And so I didn't meet him that night, but then Jerry called me the next day, and he goes, uh, George read your script last night, he wants to talk to you about it, can you meet him? At the Four Seasons on Friday in Beverly Hills for noon, you know, lunch, and I was, fuck yeah. So I, I go and meet George Carlin, and, uh. I, I, I remember he comes up to the table, goes, Kevin Smith, George Carlin. I said, oh my god. I know who you are, I'm a huge fan. He goes, I could tell because I read your script. I was like, did you like it? And he goes. Kind of feel responsible for it. And I was like, well, yeah, man, you're a huge influence. He goes, huge influence, Kevin, there's some scenes where I think I deserve co-screenwriting credit. And I was like, you know, we could talk about that.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  If you're in the movie, and he goes, well, that's what I'd like to talk to you about. He's going, I want to be in it. He's going, it fucks with the church and I'm all for that sort of thing. He's going, but we got a problem. He goes, as you know, my wife passed away recently. I was like, I know, I'm sorry. He goes, me too, I'm gonna miss her, she was a cool lady. He's going, and because of that, not ready to take off my wedding band right now. It's too soon for me. And I know if I'm playing a Catholic cardinal in your movie, can't be wearing a wedding band, they're married to Jesus or some such shit. So we find ourselves at an impasse. He goes, but I was thinking about it last night, I think I might have an idea, it could be a fix, but I gotta run it past you and see if you like it. If you allow me to wear a Band-Aid around my wedding band, in the scene, I could be your Cardinal Glick, but in real life, I can hold on to my wedding band, still be in your scene, still do what I need to do for myself.

• 18:16Speaker 04

  He goes, now, I know this might be a problem, because then it tells a different story than you were intending to tell with the cardinal, he's clumsy, and maybe you don't want to see some big ass Band-Aid on the big screen, but if you could see your way clear to let me wear a Band-Aid around my wedding band, I think I could be your Cardinal Glick, what do you think? And I was like, I think I wish you were my fucking father. I was like, that's the most beautiful shit I ever heard, you can wear as many Band-Aids as you want. So getting to work with like, a comedy fucking legend, you would think, oh my god, how, how much funny did he bring to? I mean, he brought the funny of, hey, it's George Carlin. But this motherfucker was, you would think, as a guy who, for my estimation, if there's a comedy Mount Rushmore, his fucking face would be on it, right? You would think there's a guy who's like, I know who the fuck I am, I'm comedian George Carlin.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  He backed into that. That was something he didn't aim for, something he kind of settled for. He wanted to be an actor, he wanted to be Danny Kaye. He grew up going to movies with his brother and with his mom, and his mom loved Danny Kaye movies, so naturally, he was like, well, that's what I want to do, it makes my mother happy and shit. So he wanted to be a song and dance man in a movie for kids that don't know who Danny Kaye is, he played Hans Christian Andersen in a movie way long ago. So that was George's dream, was to act. He got cast a few times, right? He was like in a With Six You Get Eggroll. He was in the Bill and Ted movies. He was in, uh, Barbra Streisand put him in Prince of Tides. And I put him in fucking Kevin Smith movies. And I kept doing it. A, because I liked being around George Carlin. But B, he loved to fucking act. Like, this is what he wanted to do with his life.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  He was so fucking method. It was crazy. He treated everything so fucking seriously, even my goofy ass shit. Case in point, where Megan Jay and Silent Bob strike back, in which George's role, inarguably, is hitchhiker who blows trucker. That's it. You don't have to be Daniel Day Lewis living the inner life of this character to bring this to life.

• 20:03Andrew Santino?

  But you could. It would be, it would help.

• 20:05Speaker 04

  He, he might do something with it unforeseen. George, you know, I was like, it's a one note joke. George is on set. He goes, Kevin, I have a question for you as the author of this piece. And I was like, recognized. And he goes, uh, the unwritten book of the road. That's what I'm talking about. He goes, now, do I believe in this shit? Or am I just fucking with these two assholes? I was like, wow, George, you've already given the script more thought than I did when I wrote it. I was like, so if I had to pick a side of the fence when I wrote it, I always assumed your character was believing what he said. He goes, that's what I thought. That's what I thought. That's the intention I'm gonna play. And I was like, I think it's adorable that you're giving it this much effort, but you literally could phone this one in, man. Like, it's just you're blowing a trucker. And he goes, Kevin, you don't know anything about the subtle art of performance, do you? And I said, no, enlighten me. And he goes, well, I'm an actor.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  And that means it's my job to tell the lie that tells the truth. In order to do that, I need as much emotional honesty as possible, as much data as I possibly can in order to suspend the window of disbelief so your audience can crawl through it into your magical world. So, when I ask you these questions, I don't do it to be an unctuous actor who needs attention. I simply need you to tell me how deeply you want me to throat this guy's dick. And I was like, maybe this much? He goes, that's what I thought. That's the intention I'm gonna play. He was so fucking serious about it and wonderful to be around. But you're, you're a comedian. You know comedians and shit like that. Biggest complaint I ever hear about comedians, and perhaps the biggest complaint I would ever have about comedians, and I love comedians, have nothing but the most utmost respect and shit, and always have throughout my young life.

• 21:34Speaker 04

  Comedians who don't turn it off.

• 21:36Andrew Santino?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  Comedians who are working hundred percent of the time.

• 21:40Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 04

  God bless you, bringing that much merriment to the table at all times. What stamina. But it's tough to have a conversation with a dude who's on.

• 21:49Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  It's tough.

• 21:51Andrew Santino?

  But there is, there is two kinds of comics. Some people are always on and some people are more private and switch and go kind of dark or low.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  Carlin was the other guy.

• 21:59Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  You could sit there and talk to him about fucking anything.

• 22:03Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  Just, he was, he was a normal ass guy. And half the time as he was talking, you were going like, what? He doesn't feel the need to be fine?

• 22:12Andrew Santino?

  No.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  And not because he's like, not until I'm paid. Just normal person and what he did for a living was what he did.

• 22:18Andrew Santino?

  It's his job. Now, how, and Rock was a young actor when he worked, a young comic and actor. I mean, like, was his?

• 22:24Speaker 04

  Breaking, like, huge. Now, you gotta remember, he had a fucking career, like, this is a young kid who was in, I'm gonna get you, sucker.

• 22:32Andrew Santino?

  He got changed for a hundred?

• 22:33Speaker 04

  How much is a bucket or is? Um, and also, um, he'd been on SNL and I was a huge Nat X fan and shit. But then, after SNL, he dipped. But then he had Roll with the New and he kind of reestablished as a thinking man's comic.

• 22:51Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 22:51Speaker 04

  Um, so, he was breaking huge at that point. And for so, he loved Chasing Amy for some reason.

• 22:58Andrew Santino?

  We all love Chasing Amy.

• 22:59Speaker 04

  I mean, God bless you all. But he, later on, he made a movie in life. He directed a movie, wrote and directed called Top Five. That feels like very Chasing Amy to me. And, and he, he, that movie meant something to him. So he was like, what are you doing next? And I was like, we're doing this movie Dogma, where we got Rufus, the thirteenth apostle and George. Like, I, I didn't even finish before he was just like, I want to do that. That sounds amazing. So getting to work on the same set with two.

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Comics at the top of their fucking game. Like, a legend and a growing legend.

• 23:35Andrew Santino?

  Legend to be, yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 04

  And they got to hang out and I got to watch them hang out and pick each other's brains. It was absolutely like spellbinding in the process of getting to make my dream movie at the same time. And this was before I ever took the stage, you know, at a comedy club. I got to comedy clubs, like, not the conventional route where I was like, I think I'm funny. And I would get up on stage or something. When you make a film and you go to film festivals, they push you out after the movie's done, like, go answer for yourself and shit. And you do Q and A and whatnot. And I'd never felt like comfortable about waxing erudite about filmmaking, considering I'd made one movie. And the movie looked like it was shot through a fucking glass of milk. So I couldn't stand up there and be like, here are my theories on cinema.

• 24:16Speaker 04

  But I had watched enough comics, I was a huge fan of stand-up comedy, to know that somebody puts a mic in your hand, fucking try to be funny. So I would get up there and be like, let me tell you how we got the cat to shit on Q in the movie. And, you know, there's a charming story attached to it. So I was up there for years doing Q and A, it was my favorite part of filmmaking, like, you know, fuck making the movies. I get to talk about them afterwards and stand on stage and make people laugh and shit like that. And the immediacy of standing on a stage and saying something funny and hearing people react to it in real time beats a thousand percent having an idea going, that's funny. And then one day, writing it down and putting in the context of something and then hoping nobody ever has the same idea as you.

• 25:00Speaker 04

  And then finally finding money to execute and or elevate that idea or joke in a movie. And then editing and it survives that process. And then through different screenings, it eventually winds up in the movie. And then, years after you have this initial thought, maybe it gets the laugh you dream about two, three years prior. Standing on a fucking stage and being like, we kept that cat away from a litter box for two fucking days. And hearing people instantly laugh, I was like, oh, this is way more preferable to what I do for a living and way cheaper in the process.

• 25:35Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 25:35Speaker 04

  But the great irony is, I don't get to get up there and tell those stories unless I'm dragging ass with a movie behind me. So my fucking. Tantalus, you know, my underworld experiences. Like, in order to do the thing I wanna do, I have to do the thing that the internet tells me over and over again for thirty years I'm not good at doing. So I have to put up with a lot of people being, "You suck at your job, and your movies suck," and be like, "All right, all right." Cause I know at the end of the process, I get what I want, which is I get to stand on a stage and pretend to be a comedian. So, I backdoored into comedy clubs, and for years I would not do a comedy club, cause I was like, I didn't earn that shit. Like, I did theaters, like, I sold out, and this ain't bragging, but this is just to illustrate a point.

• 26:16Speaker 04

  I sold out Carnegie Hall and back of just doing Q and A, being funny on a stage, without ever calling myself a comedian, and never doing comedy clubs, cause I was like, comedy clubs are only for comics. I'm not a comic, I just answer questions on a stage, there's a difference. But I knew for years, that yes, I was answering questions on stage, but you know, the art of Q and A is like, somebody's gonna say what they wanna say, you could say whatever the fuck you want. So you got like ninety-six stories loaded and ready to go, and just like any ad lib artist, or you know, uh, what was that shit, where they're like, uh...

• 26:47Andrew Santino?

  Improv comics?

• 26:48Speaker 04

  Improv comics, where it's like, "Uh, panda, the basketball." You figure out how to fit those two words in an already existing fucking sketch that you've gotten last before you're good to go. So it just fit like into my wheelhouse, you know, over time, and so over time I started like getting rid of the movies. Like, it used to be I'd go to, I did colleges for like ten years, it was amazing, cause I was so young when I started my career, I was close to the college kids' age. So they wanted me all the time, they would ask for me and shit, and for the beginning of my career, I didn't know you'd get paid for this sort of thing. So any college called me up, be like, "Hey man, we're showing Mall Rats, you wanna talk about it afterwards?" I was like, "Fuck, yes, man." So I'd drive down to Delaware, on my own dime, they'd be showing fucking Mall Rats at the theater at the campus and shit.

• 27:31Speaker 04

  Then afterwards, I'd get up and talk about it, cause these kids gave a fuck. Mall Rats is a movie that tanked at the theater, here's a bunch of college kids going, "Hey, Jason Lee's funny." I was like, "Right? Fucking thanks, where were you fucking six months ago and shit like that?" So, I did that for so long, and the last time I did it for, kinda for free, I was at, uh, Rutgers Camden Campus. And, you know, fucking when you go, I'm sure you've been to colleges, student activities, people bring you and shit like that. And so, uh, I, you know, I'd talk for two hours, and then I was like, "Hey, I've got these Clerks cartoon, man, nobody ever saw, watch this shit," and I went out and grabbed some cigarettes and whatnot. Cause I was a big cigarette smoker in those days. So I'm outside grabbing a cigarette, and the student activities, uh, girl was like... You're not done. I was like, I mean, do you need me to be done?

• 28:15Speaker 04

  She goes, no, you can keep talking as long as you want. And I was like, oh, great, because I love talking. And she goes, it's just you're gone, you've you're done double of what Janine Garofalo did already. And I was like, oh, Janine was here, because we'd made Dogma.

• 28:26Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 04

  She was in Dogma. So I was like, oh, Janine was here? And she goes, yeah, she did it like forty five minutes and then she left. And I was like, oh. And I'm smoking and then she goes, and we paid her twenty five grand. And I was like.

• 28:38Andrew Santino?

  What?

• 28:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was like, what do you, what do you, why? What did she do? Did she save a life? And she was like, no, that's what people get paid to do. She's going, you're the first person we've ever booked who doesn't get paid. And I was like, are you fucking serious? Like, I thought it was just part of the responsibility of like, I made these movies. I gotta talk about them for the rest of my life. You carry them around like herpes for the rest of your life. So I figured like it's good for my business to go out and talk about these movies. But it never once occurred to me that I could get paid for that sort of thing. So from that screening forward, I was like, look, if you want me to drive to Florida to talk after Mallard's, you gotta pay for my gas at least. One day, an agent was like, let me handle this for you.

• 29:16Andrew Santino?

  Yeah. We'll get you a little bit more than gas, dude.

• 29:18Speaker 04

  And I started actually getting paid to do it. But so I got to the stand up stage through a very long convoluted process where I honestly, it was Ralphie May at one point where he was, I was like, I can't do comedy clubs, man. You gotta, if if I go to a comedy club, it ain't a comedian's audience that's gonna be there. It's gonna be my audience showing up to see me. And Ralphie May was like, Kevin, it doesn't matter if it's your audience showing up to see you in a comedy club. If you can fill a comedy club, you're a fucking comedian. He's like, don't, don't worry, go do the clubs. And that was incredibly liberating because like when you're doing theaters and shit, and this is gonna sound like First World Problems, but when you're doing theaters, you're doing like Carnegie Hall, there's a lot of seats to sell.

• 29:58Andrew Santino?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 04

  Like a comedy club, two hundred, three hundred? That was, then it was like, suddenly in sales wise, I got to throttle down. But in terms of content wise, I got to get even more adventurous and shit.

• 30:11Andrew Santino?

  Sure.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. So and then I wind up on stages doing a thing that I grew up watching people doing, never once thinking, oh, I can do that. Like, I was a kid in high school that was, or even grade school, who was like the class clown or funny or anything like that. You know, I was witty and I could write shit. But I got to wind up being a stand up artist in this life without. Shooting for it, but it came as a backdoor from movies, which sounds exactly as sexy as I meant it.

• 30:38Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, but isn't that amazing to think that like Carlin backed into standup, but wanted to be an actor and then you.

• 30:44Speaker 04

  And the only reason I do what I do is because of him. Growing up, listening to his albums and watching his HBO specials. Seeing a guy be erudite, but when I was a kid, it wasn't even so much that. Like when you're a kid, you come for the cursing, right? It's like, oh, he fucking cursed.

• 30:59Andrew Santino?

  Said fuck like nine times.

• 31:00Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly. But when you listen to the albums over and over again, or watch the specials over and over again, in order to learn them, do them on the playground or whatever. What sticks to me is how wizened the motherfucker is. Even at a young age, you're like, this guy's smart. Like, he's just common sense thinking. I think I got smarter listening to George Carlin.

• 31:18Andrew Santino?

  Oh, for sure.

• 31:19Speaker 04

  As a kid. And so, he was the gift that kept on giving. Motherfucker never sat me down and said, you should do what I do. And, and, you know, probably because he never could conceive of it. Like, you know, he knew me as one guy. He knew me as the guy that wrote Dogma and stuff like that. And he was never there for like a Q and A and stuff. I got to see him perform live though, many times across my life, but post Dogma. Like me and Rock were on set with him one day and he goes, you know, I'm gonna be playing, uh, Caesar's Palace in Atlantic City. In two months, he goes, you guys should go. Because we were talking about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he was, he wanted us to go, not because he was bragging, because he goes, I'll show you how to do my show for an afternoon crowd. Because he was telling us about the subtle difference between like doing what he normally does.

• 32:04Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 32:04Speaker 04

  And then doing it.

• 32:05Andrew Santino?

  Like a 4pm?

• 32:06Speaker 04

  And doing for Vegas and Atlantic City where he's like, Kevin, they don't want to hear the smart shit. He goes, they want to hear cocksucker motherfucker tits. They want to hear all the easy stuff. They don't want to hear sharp observations. And so we're like, no way, there's no way you just do a normal show. And he goes, oh, I'll show you. And so me and Rock go to Caesar's, uh, Caesar's Palace in Atlantic City. And it's me and my wife Jennifer, like we've, when we're early in our, yeah, we must have been married at that point. I don't even know if we're married at that point. It was right before we got married, she was pregnant. And then Rock and his wife at that point, Malak. And we had like, Carlin, Carlin got us his booth like right up front. So like I could have taken a Kleenex, balled it up, hurled it at his hip and shattered it. We were that close.

• 32:50Speaker 04

  So, you know, if, if you know Carlin, he's got this one bit he did later in his career. Uh, people I could do without, and it's like a list bit where he's just listing fucking randos. And it's kind of fun. So it's like guys named Skip, you know, the audience like, ah. One of them is, um, you know, and it always fucking made me smile because I've been doing this shit my whole life. He goes, uh, guys over the age of 12 who wear their baseball caps backwards. So my whole life I've been listening to that bit going like, oh, I feel seen and shit. So we go to watch him and he does that bit as part of the routine. Cause it's not a, this is going to alienate people. It's a general like, people suck.

• 33:32Speaker 04

  And the aud, any audience could enjoy that. So there's me and Rock sitting there and next to our wives. And George is doing his bit and he starts it. And when he starts it, I was like, oh shit. Like I'm gonna be in the room for baseball cap. And so he's going through the routine and he doesn't even look at us. He just goes, another person I could do without, Kevin, you're exempt from this. Guys over the age of 12 who wear their baseball caps backwards. And nobody in the room knew who I was and shit like that. Nor if, even if they saw me sitting there, it's not like, he's fucking famous. Like I was still, if you knew art films, you knew Clerks and Chasing Amy, or if you saw Mallrats and Home Video, maybe you knew who I was. Maybe Bill like, oh, that looks like Silent Bob. But it wasn't like everybody was like, oh, the celebrated fucking Kevin Smith.

• 34:16Speaker 04

  But Chris Rock was sitting next to me and he goes, oh, he knows your name. And I was like, oh my God, you're right. It was a pretty highlight moment.

• 34:25Andrew Santino?

  That's amazing. I mean, to skip through that in the show, cause you know what's so funny about that? When we talk about that as a comic, you could say stuff, uh, most audiences never heard it. They never even knew it happened. It's almost like, it's like passing cars. It's like, uh, oh, that car was blue. You're like, was it? They don't even hear it.

• 34:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 34:41Andrew Santino?

  So what's funny is it's just for you and how great that he gave you that little nugget and cruised so fast beyond it. You will hold it forever. No one else knew. It's amazing.

• 34:49Speaker 04

  It was, and it was one of those things where it's like, you didn't have to do that.

• 34:53Andrew Santino?

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 04

  But he knew I was sitting right there.

• 34:54Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 04

  He wasn't doing it to like, this is gonna soften the blow because it's gonna hurt Kev. Like, I'm thin-skinned, but I had that thin skin. But he knew me as like, fucking, not only is the guy who always wears the backwards baseball cap in movies, but at that point, I'd gravitated to wearing it in real life as well.

• 35:09Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 35:09Speaker 04

  So I'm sitting in the audience with my backwards baseball cap. For him to casually toss it off, I just, it felt very affectionate. It was very, very sweet.

• 35:17Andrew Santino?

  Well, he's a, and a legend to a degree I can't explain. If I start to talk about it, I'll just go blah, blah, blah.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  In here, we pour whiskey.

• 35:27Andrew Santino?

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• 36:55Andrew Santino?

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• 37:41Andrew Santino?

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• 38:04Andrew Santino?

  Tell me this.

• 38:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:05Andrew Santino?

  Jason Lee, you said, very quickly, you kind of went in and out. Were, do you give yourself credit for a lot of the findings of Jason Lee?

• 38:15Speaker 04

  I, you know, not credit, but I was smart enough to cast him. I give credit for Jason Lee.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  Technically, honestly, Jason Lee deserves the credit, and here's why. So Jason Lee is dating Marissa Rabisi, who is the redheaded curly-haired chick in Days of Confusion.

• 38:33Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  Could be your sister in the original.

• 38:36Andrew Santino?

  Dude, you write it, I'll do it.

• 38:38Speaker 04

  Now that I see it, I can fucking, you and Marissa Rabisi, get Vani in there as well.

• 38:42Andrew Santino?

  Come on, man.

• 38:43Speaker 04

  Marissa Rabisi is dating Jason Lee while they're making Days of Confusion. Marissa Rabisi is the sister of Vani Rabisi, another fine actor from Avatar and movies like that and shit. And better movies. I'm not saying Avatar's bad, but he's fucking great at Vani. He's also is in a mainstream movie as well from time to time. His mom, Gaye Rabisi, is a manager in the business. She manages her two kids' careers. She manages other people's careers. So we're casting this movie and our casting, uh, mall ransom. Our casting director is a guy named Don Phillips. Don Phillips had cast

• 39:20Speaker 04

  Fast Times at Ridgemont High, so he discovered Sean Penn. He also cast Daisy Confused, so he discovered Matthew McConaughey.

• 39:29Andrew Santino?

  Good god.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  Um, I mean, you know, Richard, I think, was like, you should look at this guy, but regardless, he's the guy, he's the casting director, he gets the cred. So on this movie, we're seeing all of young Hollywood come in. And then one day, Don Phillips goes to me and Scott, he goes,

• 39:47Speaker 04

  he goes, Gabe Robisi, the manager, he's gone, she got somebody she wants to send in. I was like, great. And he's like, he's never acted before. I was like, get out of here. He goes, he was a professional skateboarder, but he wants to act. And I was like, and? And he goes, ah, it might be a waste of your time. I was like, I, my whole first movie, nobody's a professional, like, yeah, man, like, worse, worse, it could be, he could be terrible. Bring him in, let's, let's see. So Jason Lee came in and all the guys auditioned with the TS um, monologue or TS scene that was in the movie and cut. It was in the 15 year anniversary, the cut opening of the sequence took place on the rooftop and shit. Whole opening of the movie, we wound up cutting off.

• 40:32Speaker 04

  So all the guys auditioned for TS using those lines and all the girls auditioned using the Brandy lines from that scene. So Jason came in and like, I remember he was like, he was a fucking kid, but I was a kid too, but he was even younger than me. So he's real earnest, like, because of the movie, you should think like, oh my god, he's like Jason Mew, like funny as fuck, but Jason Lee's a pretty earnest guy. So he comes in and I was like, so, they, uh, tell me you're a skateboarder, you know, I'm looking for anything to talk to him about and shit. And he goes, yeah. He goes, but I retired. And I was like, oh, because, you know, skateboarding to me is a way to get from a place to place. And I knew like, there were people that ollied things.

• 41:15Speaker 04

  Well, I didn't know you could make a living from it, right? So, he goes, but I'm retired. I goes, oh, I say you can retire from skateboarding? He looks up so serious, it's a heart attack. Not shitty, but just like, oh, I gotta fucking.

• 41:28Andrew Santino?

  Inform you?

• 41:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, I gotta disabuse you of your ignorance. He goes, well, I was skateboarding at a professional level for nine years. And I was like, oh, I didn't know that was a thing. So, he read, and there was, honestly, he was like not, he was fine. It wasn't like, my god, I could see the future. But we had such a good time talking to him, because he was a real person. And unlike every actor who came in, you know, kind of like.

• 41:57Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  Sparkle, nearly sparkle, he came in like a human being. Who was just like, I think acting would be fun, like Citizen Kane. I think it would be fun to run a newspaper, you know? So, it was kind of charming. So, after he comes in, Don Phillips goes, what do you think? I was like, I don't think he's right for the movie, but bring him back. He's a nice guy. And he's like, it'll be good for him if he gets to come back, because he's never auditioned before. And I was like, yeah, by all means, bring him back. We liked talking to him. So, he came back. When he came back, instead of reading TS, we had him read Brody lines. We were like, he ain't a TS, but maybe he could be Brody. And we didn't think he was gonna be him, because we had seen a guy earlier, day one of auditions, who we were like, that's fucking Brody.

• 42:37Andrew Santino?

  Who was it? Do you remember?

• 42:38Speaker 04

  I do, and I don't know his name. Um, he's, it's not like, and that guy is Leonardo, you know, J fucking Tobey Maguire. He's, but he was in a movie. Like, I saw him on the big screen, and that's how I knew him when we had him to the audition. He was in Speed. He was somebody who was on the bus in Speed. So, when he came in, we were like, you were in fucking Speed. And he was crushing the audition. So, we were like, this guy's gonna be Brody. So, Jason Lee, even though we brought him back and we let him read for Brody, there was no inclination, like, here's our guy.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  When he's reading the lines.

• 43:15Speaker 04

  There was a scene also cut from the movie, but it's in the cut scenes. You can see it on the DVD if you have it still. Physical media.

• 43:24Speaker 04

  He has a line, Brody, where he refers to, he's in front of Svenning's house and he pretends he's his neighbor. And he's like, oh, he's, he's giving the reporter gossip about Jared Svenning's house, Michael Rooker. And he goes, the line is something like, I even heard they had a black mass there. And his pronunciation of black mass was so charming to me. He held it out like a sheep. He was like, black mass. He goes, they even had a black mass there. And it was him holding out those A's like, bah, that I was like that. It made me laugh out loud. And not at him, but I was like, that's funny. Like, you know, what a choice. Acting is a job of choices. That's all it is.

• 44:07Speaker 04

  It's not like, motherfucker's born with talent. No. An actor makes a choice. They choose how to deliver a line. The choice makes that line believable. That's what makes an actor convincing. He made a fucking choice nobody else would make.

• 44:20Andrew Santino?

  Worked.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  And I don't know if it was a choice or if that's how he says black and mass.

• 44:25Andrew Santino?

  Did he just say it weird? He's like, that's just how I say it, man.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  For me, I'm like, that's interesting. And so we kept bringing Jason back. Like, Don Phillips would be like, do you think he'll be in? I said, I don't think he's right for anything, but bring him back. He's a nice guy. He made it all the way to the final round where Don Phillips did this thing called the pizza party where he had multiple people who were up for the same role come on the same day. And he round robin'd everybody. It's something that like, I'd never, you know, cast movies before, other than Clerks, which we did low budget. So I thought, oh, this must be the way they do it in Hollywood. Ever since then, I've heard from people who are like, that was the worst auditioning experience of my life. Like, you made me sit in a room with somebody else who was up for the same fucking part. I was like, I didn't do shit, man. I was like, that was Don Phillips. They told me that's how they did on Dazed and Confused. And people were like, and I hated it then. So.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  He came to the pizza party more as a stalking horse. Like, we needed three choices. We had a guy that we liked and we all thought was gonna be Brody. So it's like, we gotta bring two other people.

• 45:25Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 04

  Bring Jason Lee. It'll be good for him because he's trying to establish himself and fucking his first movie audition route. He gets all the way to the last round.

• 45:33Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  So we were framing it as a favor to him, even though technically it's like, well, we need bodies in there. Even though we got the guy we think we like. And the strangest thing happened. I'd never seen it before, but I hadn't done it before. But I've never seen it since.

• 45:50Speaker 04

  You know, in hockey, there's an expression, "The game is on your stick." Game is on my man's stick. All he had to do was sweep it in to the fucking net.

• 45:59Andrew Santino?

  That's it.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  And the goalie wasn't even there.

• 46:01Andrew Santino?

  Yours to lose.

• 46:03Speaker 04

  And he did. Like, over the course of the, like, him doing the scene, it wasn't the same guy who was killing it in the room. So much so that I did a thing that I've never done since.

• 46:18Speaker 04

  Where at one point, three hours into the day, I pulled him aside and I was like, "I don't know how to say this, but you're losing it." Which is the worst fucking thing to say to somebody that's doing it, but I didn't know what to do.

• 46:29Andrew Santino?

  Just start cleaning the gun, like, "Really? Okay."

• 46:31Speaker 04

  Exactly. And like, in retrospect, but I was like, I was scared for him more for me, cuz I was like, "All my hopes are pinned on you." Like, fuck it. Like, so you gotta show him what you showed us. And it never came back. It was a weird phenomenon, but to this day, I feel like, I feel bad for the kid. However, Jason Lee, not even going like, "Well, here's my chance", just kept black-massing it. Just steady as you go.

• 47:02Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 47:03Speaker 04

  And like, slow and steady won the race. By the end of the day, even the studio people from Universal were like, "Who is that guy? He's pretty funny." And so, Don Phillips, and you know, when the pizza party was done, the people who were left still in the hallways and shit like that, everyone waiting to find out. And so, um, Don Phillips goes, "What do we think for Brody?" And I was like, "I think it's Jason Lee." Like, everyone thought he was funny. He's playing. And he goes, "If you wanna do it, he's never done anything before." I was like, "I..."

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Black man, and he goes, I know you love it.

• 47:38Andrew Santino?

  I know, black mass, I know.

• 47:39Speaker 04

  So he goes, you wanna tell him, or you want me to tell him? And I was like, well, what's, what does one do? And he goes, I mean, I'm happy to tell him, he's going, but you could change somebody's life. Have you ever changed somebody's life before? And I was like, no. And he goes, well, why don't you deliver the news? Just to watch his face. And I was like, alright, fucking yeah, yeah, bring him into the office. So, Jason comes in, he didn't, it was called the pizza party, cause they literally brought pizza. All the actors, nobody touched the pizza, cause they were like, I hate this. Yeah, they were fucking nervous as shit. So Jason Lee didn't eat any pizza, but I guess by the end of the day, he was hungry as fuck, and he got himself, in my memory, it's a Whopper. He remembers it as Carl's Jr. I don't even know if they existed in ninety-five. Gotta do the math on that.

• 48:20Andrew Santino?

  He can look it up.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  When Jason tells the story, he goes, Carl's Jr. I was like, I remember being a Whopper. But regardless, he came in with a bag of fast food. And sat down in the chair, and he was like, do you mind if I eat? I'm really hungry. And I was like, oh my god, eat away, go ahead. Was there a Carl's Jr.?

• 48:36Andrew Santino?

  Carl's Jr. opened in nineteen forty-one. Yep, Carl's Jr. is also Hardee's, right? They're owned by the same company.

• 48:42Speaker 04

  Listen to this fucking.

• 48:43Andrew Santino?

  And let me tell, let me tell you something.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  I'm like, I don't even know if they existed, they're like, we predate you asshole. We existed before you.

• 48:49Andrew Santino?

  And by the way, do you remember the kid's name?

• 48:50Speaker 04

  Your father ate a burger from us before he fucked your mother. That's who we are.

• 48:56Andrew Santino?

  While he was fucking your mother.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, same time.

• 48:58Andrew Santino?

  One of our burgers.

• 48:59Speaker 04

  He was robbing your mother's sweet ass, and he was eating it. Hardee's.

• 49:03Speaker 05

  Are you talking about the kid from Speed?

• 49:04Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, what is his name?

• 49:05Speaker 05

  I do have the little people in Speed.

• 49:06Andrew Santino?

  Don't say it.

• 49:07Speaker 04

  Don't.

• 49:07Andrew Santino?

  No, but we'll talk about it after.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  But anybody could do their homework.

• 49:10Andrew Santino?

  Yes.

• 49:10Speaker 04

  Make them work for it.

• 49:11Andrew Santino?

  No, but I wanted him to fight it for us. Alright, we'll talk about it later.

• 49:14Speaker 04

  Um, so.

• 49:16Andrew Santino?

  He's eating that burger.

• 49:16Speaker 04

  He's eating his.

• 49:17Andrew Santino?

  He's eating a.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  Carl's Jr.

• 49:18Andrew Santino?

  Carl's Jr. burger.

• 49:19Speaker 04

  Got a cop to it, fuck, he knows. I tried to at least explain to him, I was like, no, it was a Whopper. He's like, it was Carl's Jr.

• 49:25Andrew Santino?

  Whopper does sound better, by the way.

• 49:27Speaker 04

  I was trying to get Burger King to buy it.

• 49:29Andrew Santino?

  You're a storyteller.

• 49:30Speaker 04

  And I was trying to get Burger King to give us money.

• 49:31Andrew Santino?

  That's right, give us some money, man.

• 49:32Speaker 04

  So you know what? Whoever wants to give us money, that's the burger.

• 49:36Andrew Santino?

  That's the burger, dude.

• 49:37Speaker 04

  So he's, uh, eating his Carl's Jr. He's like, would you mind if I ate? I was like, eat away. So he's like. And I was like, well?

• 49:45Speaker 04

  You're it, man. We want you to play Brody. And this was his reaction. He's like, "Yeah?"

• 49:51Speaker 04

  And just went back to eating his fucking burger. That's how it changed his life. He wanted one look up, but then, right, he was so fucking hungry right back.

• 49:59Andrew Santino?

  Is that right? Cool.

• 50:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. Almost, honestly, like, I, I've...

• 50:07Speaker 04

  How to express, Jason Lee is beyond talented and talent out. But you're literally talking about a guy who was like, "It could be fun to be an actor."

• 50:15Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Speaker 04

  As a second career. After he was like, "It could be fun to be a professional skateboarder." Motherfucker can manifest.

• 50:22Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, he did it.

• 50:23Speaker 04

  You know what I'm saying? He should be playing lottery numbers. Or he should be picking them and giving them to me.

• 50:27Andrew Santino?

  Give me, give me the reasoning for a number. I, I think you might know the question I'm gonna ask. Why thirty-seven dicks?

• 50:33Speaker 04

  What a beautiful question. I don't get to answer this nearly enough, because in the beginning, people would ask. And then when I give them the answer in the early nineties, people were sad that they asked. Because you couldn't really talk like this back then. Uh, my ex-girlfriend, my high school girlfriend, um, who I'm still dear friends with,

• 50:52Speaker 04

  had a list of people she had sex with. It was me and somebody else, and that was it.

• 51:01Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 51:02Speaker 04

  But, the list of people she had blown was far larger. So, two versus twelve. And I was always like, "Twelve."

• 51:13Andrew Santino?

  Twelve?

• 51:13Speaker 04

  Like, "My god." And, you know, she was like Catholic like me and shit like that, pretty, like, she, you know, just, that was the Catholic way. It's like, "Well, I'm not gonna fuck, but..."

• 51:24Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, but I'll blow you, dude.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  Totally. So, when I was writing the number, I, like, I was like, "Well, twelve is too close to home." So, let me, it's gotta be a ridiculous number. Like, it's gotta be something that would make your hair blow back. So, I'm gonna at least fucking double it. And so, I wrote twenty-four, and I was like, "I don't know, that ain't funny."

• 51:44Andrew Santino?

  It's a round number. It's two round of a number, yeah.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  And so, I was like, "Well, three times that." And so, three times, it was like thirty-six, and then I was like, "Thirty-seven." So, I just added one more, just to be like, "Oh, my god, ridiculous." Forty would have been like, "This ain't true."

• 51:57Andrew Santino?

  Right, correct.

• 51:58Speaker 04

  But thirty-seven felt, now, for nineteen ninety-four, thirty-seven felt unreasonable, unrealistic, in the height of comedy.

• 52:05Andrew Santino?

  Sure.

• 52:06Speaker 04

  Because unless you were getting paid to blow for a living, who would ever blow that many people? I remember fucking showing this movie within the last five years and in a Q and A, somebody was like, "Why do you think thirty-seven blowjobs is a lot?" And I was like, "Where were, oh my god, I missed my fucking generation." "Holy shit, are you serious?" Like, I was told that was a shockingly low number.

• 52:29Andrew Santino?

  Well, you're in the generation of OnlyFans, man. This is a different world now, dude. You know, his twenty-five-year-olds, it's a different world, dude.

• 52:36Speaker 04

  I guess it's all blowies these days.

• 52:37Andrew Santino?

  But we used to say that so common, like, our friends would say that all the fu- I mean, the common phrase was, when someone would get out of somebody's car and we were meeting someone somewhere, we'd always be like, "Try not to suck any dick while walking to the parking lot," and we'd scream it out to our friends.

• 52:52Speaker 04

  Makes me so happy.

• 52:53Andrew Santino?

  Just because we'd be driving away and they'd have to be there with it.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  Leaving in the air.

• 52:58Andrew Santino?

  That's from a movie, and everyone around is like, "What the fuck were they talking about?" And you're like, "Nothing, dude."

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Even if you drop that quote today, the percentage of people who are gonna know it, minimal. Then?

• 53:09Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 53:09Speaker 04

  It's not like anyone heard it. It was like, "Hey, that's Clerks." Most people just hearing that are like, "You guys are animals."

• 53:15Andrew Santino?

  I mean, our pig friends on, I mean, our little clique of pigs knew, everybody knew, and we said it all the time. But thirty-seven was the number that, as a joke, we always talked about that of like, "Dude, thirty-seven. Thirty-seven is so many dicks," and it was.

• 53:29Speaker 04

  It's the number, for years I wore hockey jerseys, and I wore the copper and the blue, uh, but with my own insignias. And then I moved to, uh, Chicago alt jersey colors, which is black and red. And the number on all of them has always been thirty-seven. Like, thirty-seven was a fucking crazy, lucky number for me. Um, mercifully,

• 53:51Speaker 04

  it's not, it doesn't play for everybody like, "Oh, what a quaint time, thirty-seven." There's still some people who are like, "It's pretty high."

• 53:59Speaker 04

  And that gives me hope for the future.

• 54:01Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, like, we're gonna work out. We're gonna, well, as a father, I'm sure you're like, "Ah, is it bad?"

• 54:05Speaker 04

  I remember she saw, like, Clerks for the first time when she was eighteen, nineteen, or something like that. And uh, I was like, what'd you think? She was like, you know, for years, people have been saying like, your father means something to me and I never understood why. And she's going, I kinda get it now. She's going, that was a cool movie. And I was like, fucking thanks.

• 54:26Andrew Santino?

  That's an amazing moment, though.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  Pretty sweet.

• 54:28Andrew Santino?

  Like, that's cool that, like, I have friends that have this moment with their kids, especially because your kid, your, your kid, I say kid, she's not a kid, but-

• 54:34Speaker 04

  She's 26, but still-

• 54:35Andrew Santino?

  Your daughter-

• 54:36Speaker 04

  She'll forever be my kid.

• 54:37Andrew Santino?

  Yes, but your daughter is a successful actor in her own right and it's, and works in the-

• 54:41Speaker 04

  She would, she would question your use of the term successful.

• 54:45Andrew Santino?

  Well, really-

• 54:46Speaker 04

  She's real hard on herself, oh my god, I feel bad for-

• 54:48Andrew Santino?

  What is success, I mean, cause it's such a subjective bullshit term anyway.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  Here's my, here's how I gauge success. You wanted to be an actor and you wanted to work with one of your favorite directors, and it ain't me, it was Quentin Tarantino, and you did it, like-

• 55:02Andrew Santino?

  That's it, dude.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, well, you know, keep going, but you won. With me, it was like, like, none of this, I didn't dream of any of this, I just wanted to make Clerks. So I won, for me, a long time ago. Everything else has just been gravy. Like, no life plan, everything else has just been like, oh, I get to do this now? Oh, I get to do this now? And it helps that, like, it's never lost its luster. You know, there, we, we tend to silo off and, and I'm no different. Like, I like being at my house and I don't like going places and shit. But then, like, oh, I get to go out and talk about myself? And, alright, fucking, wait, there's whiskey involved? Alright, let's fucking-

• 55:43Speaker 04

  Um, so it, it's, it, it's the gift that keeps on fucking given, man. Like, I'm so, you know, it sounds ridiculous to say, but like, so glad I made that movie. The first one, all of them particularly, but like, the first one, because it was kind of like a calling card. It was like, hi, my name's Kevin Smith, I wanna talk to you for the rest of my life. And it was the way to do it, it was the way to introduce myself without feeling desperate. Like, if you watch old interviews with Kevin Smith, he was so laid back, cool, it's almost sickening, I can't stand it and shit. Like, he can't be bothered, everything hurts so much, he's just like, can't believe I'm doing press. But meanwhile, it's like, can, like, old Kevin Smith is like, I can't believe anyone- Wants to talk to you, you asshole and shit. You don't even know how to fucking present entertainingly yet and shit.

• 56:26Speaker 04

  So it's been a weird, long career that I wasn't prepared for. But then there are cool moments where it's just like, oh, I'm gonna go to a place and talk about myself for a while. Like, that still does it for me. And then being able to make a thing. This is an instance where I'm out there talking about a thing I didn't make. So I don't have to educate people on it. I don't have to be like, well, it's called the 4:30 movie and I made it and I shot it at my movie theater and it's kind of the story of like how I first fell in love with film. This is like, hey, man, remember Dogma? Like, fuck, yeah, that was like when Fight Club came out. You get credit for movies you didn't even make.

• 56:58Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 56:59Speaker 04

  Cause people are like, that's the same year as Fight Club and Matrix. And I'm like, yeah, that's right. And I didn't make either of those, but I'm happy to be in the same company. If you feel good about it, I can tell by your energy that that's a good thing.

• 57:09Andrew Santino?

  But now the re-release of Dogma, though.

• 57:11Speaker 04

  I don't have Matrix around me. I don't have Fight Club, so I'm fucked this time.

• 57:15Andrew Santino?

  What do you have now? What's around you now? What does it come out?

• 57:17Speaker 04

  Oddly enough, Ben Affleck. Affleck is in a movie called The Accountant 2 in theaters right now.

• 57:22Andrew Santino?

  And this comes out?

• 57:23Speaker 04

  This comes out next week on June 5th. So old Ben Affleck and young Ben Affleck are finally gonna battle at the box office.

• 57:29Andrew Santino?

  We hope the young one wins.

• 57:31Speaker 04

  I do.

• 57:31Andrew Santino?

  I hope the young one wins.

• 57:32Speaker 04

  Fuck, yeah. I think the accountant's had its time.

• 57:36Speaker 04

  One and two.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  In here, we pour whiskey.

• 57:40Andrew Santino?

  Hey, here to tell you about Light Strike. I don't know if you've seen this or you've heard of it, but this is an excellent source of 5% alcohol. All right? 10% coconut water is in this orange mango that I'm holding right now. All right? They live for the double take. What is that? It's incredible. You've seen this on the shelf perhaps. All right? They got some sea salt. It's not carbonated. It's gluten free, for those of you that need it to be. It's 10% coconut water. I don't know why I'm doing accent, but it's 10% coconut water. A bold and ambitious, uh, Gen Z drinkers, young, young folks out there. All right? You're the life of the party. All right? So this is what you're looking for. Looking for something fun. All right? Light Strike is a hard refresher. It's not just another alcohol product. It's a survival tool, damn it. Light Strike is the first hard beverage built to play the long game, featuring a crushable combination of coconut water, sea salt, and 5% ABV.

• 58:26Andrew Santino?

  This party paste are shockingly smooth, fizz free, not carbonated, and gluten free. All right? They got a couple of favors. Lemon lime, which I like, but orange mango I like because I am an orange mango boy, as you know. You have to try this, man. Give it a whirl. It is quite delicious. Visit lightstrike.com to find some and follow at Drink Light Strike on social. Light Strike, hard refresher and excellent source of 5% alcohol. Lemon lime and orange mango and it comes in a resealable bottle, giving you the control of how hard you go. You want to go ham? Go off. Hey, when you talk about credit, everyone's all up in arms about, you know, how hard it is to maintain, how hard it is to get, but Kickoff is here, all right?

• 59:05Andrew Santino?

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• 59:50Andrew Santino?

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• 1:00:35Speaker 04

  Coming out in June, when we came out last time, it was like November. Like, you know, we were not, nobody was like, hey, this could be a summer movie. But here we are coming out in June.

• 1:00:44Andrew Santino?

  You guys wrote a Thanksgiving release, basically?

• 1:00:46Speaker 04

  Isn't that nuts?

• 1:00:46Andrew Santino?

  That's really weird.

• 1:00:47Speaker 04

  Yes, in advance of Thanksgiving. Let me tell you a little inside art from back in the day. I don't think it matters anymore. It was, they put it in theaters, I think it was like November 13th, I believe it opened. Because they knew if it was in theaters for two weeks when Thanksgiving happened, it would get the Thanksgiving bump.

• 1:01:04Andrew Santino?

  The bump, yeah.

• 1:01:05Speaker 04

  Isn't it amazing? Like Thanksgiving, traditionally, there's always a bump at the, at the box office.

• 1:01:10Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  And there are many theories as to why that happens. People like, oh, you're home with your relatives and, and fucking people like, let's go to the movies as a family. But the most dominant theory is like, people hate their fucking families so much.

• 1:01:22Andrew Santino?

  That's it. I'm gonna go see a fucking movie.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  I can relate to them without having to relate to them. I could sit in a room with them, be with them without having to talk to them. But there is always a box office bump, so we did enjoy a third week box office bump on Dogma because of Thanksgiving.

• 1:01:36Andrew Santino?

  It ended up doing very well in the box office.

• 1:01:38Speaker 04

  Thirty million, which is, which is like, well, look.

• 1:01:41Andrew Santino?

  What, in the year of its release? That's huge.

• 1:01:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, a hundred would have been huge.

• 1:01:45Andrew Santino?

  Wow.

• 1:01:45Speaker 04

  Especially because Pulp Fiction did a hundred. And Pulp Fiction, well, and most people in the audience going, but you didn't make Pulp Fiction. I'm like, I know, I know. But Pulp Fiction, I never would have thought about making a movie that ever made a hundred million. Let alone, you know, I was shocked I made a movie that made two bucks and shit. But Pulp Fiction making a hundred million gave all of us indie filmmakers hope because it was like, holy shit.

• 1:02:06Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Speaker 04

  Like, you could make something that off the beaten path and it could do business? It could cross over into a multiplex?

• 1:02:12Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 1:02:13Speaker 04

  Like, maybe anything's possible. So going into Dogma, there was like, oh my God, could we make that? We didn't. But thirty million was like, that's high end for Kevin Smith. Uh, Dogma and Jane's Silent Bob Strike Back both topped off at thirty million. So it feels like I had a thirty million dollar.

• 1:02:29Andrew Santino?

  You're the thirty million dollar man.

• 1:02:30Speaker 04

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:02:31Andrew Santino?

  It's the name of this episode now.

• 1:02:32Speaker 04

  We can rebuild him.

• 1:02:33Andrew Santino?

  Well, I wanna, I wanna say this to you before, I mean, there's so many things I wanna say to you.

• 1:02:37Speaker 04

  Say them all.

• 1:02:38Andrew Santino?

  Well, first of all, shout out to the Jinko, Jinko jean shorts that you were wearing when you came in. He was rocking Jinkos and I, you know what's really strange?

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  I said, like my. Straight out the nineties.

• 1:02:46Andrew Santino?

  Straight out the ninety. Well, this young lad here, my, my little boy Mccone.

• 1:02:51Speaker 04

  I remember that song from childhood.

• 1:02:58Andrew Santino?

  We hope. But his generation now loves Jinko's.

• 1:03:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, they came fucking back. But y'all liked them too long for my tastes. I like them knee length and when I stand, they just cover my knees. Cause I got my mom's childbearing hips and fat thighs. So for years, I've always been interested in elephant trunk shorts. Cause they come down enough to cover that shit. I conversely have tremendous calves.

• 1:03:22Andrew Santino?

  You do have nice calves.

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:03:24Andrew Santino?

  And I can tell you why you have nice calves.

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  Tell me.

• 1:03:26Andrew Santino?

  Cause I see you hiking all the time.

• 1:03:27Speaker 04

  Well, that's part of it. But also I had them even before I hiked. It's cause I had to hoist like a very large carriage for most of my life. So the thighs retain like fat cells and they just get chubby and shit. But my calves, man, always look good. So if I've always wanted shorts that covered everything else but.

• 1:03:45Andrew Santino?

  But the calves.

• 1:03:46Speaker 04

  So it was like, you know, a kilt would have done it or a dress, but Jorts, Jinko particularly worked out for me. So over the years, Jinko's come and gone in terms of somebody revives it and stuff like that. And every time it comes under new ownership, I rush to the website to be like, alright, man, I need thirteen inch. But they commit more to fifteen and then almost seventeen, which is like, you know, might as well be pants at that point. So I have bought Jinko's and brought them to tailors and been like, can you take off two inches, please and bring them up? They don't work. It doesn't look right. Like it looks like you're wearing bell bottom Jorts or something like that. They flare out. So this pair, the Obra Liable, man, I've had it for so fucking long. And I was saying before we started, because I got my mom's like heavy thighs, the inside of your thighs go like this.

• 1:04:31Speaker 04

  And you lose pants and shorts a lot quicker, even if you're wearing denim. Fuck, that's why I can't wear corduroy. I learned that as a kid.

• 1:04:38Andrew Santino?

  I hate corduroy.

• 1:04:39Speaker 04

  Well, number one, the vut vut, but number two, it's like that shit fucking fades quick between chubby thighs and shit. But um, this shows you how strong Jinko's are and denim, I'm still like, there's no like.

• 1:04:52Andrew Santino?

  Nowhere.

• 1:04:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's no like, I'm gonna have to give them up. I have to start making. Plans for what's next. I'll put patches inside or whatever, because I've done that with some clothes. But there's Jinko's, man.

• 1:05:00Andrew Santino?

  They've lasted. Can I propose that you you buy Jinko?

• 1:05:04Speaker 04

  Oh, the company.

• 1:05:05Andrew Santino?

  Why wouldn't you try? Because they keep going in and out, like, right? They

• 1:05:09Speaker 04

  They do.

• 1:05:10Andrew Santino?

  Who owns them now? Look up who owns Jinko. Because I remember they were they were revitalized by a larger company and then they sold them and they stopped selling them. And they started selling them again. Someone like Kevin Smith needs to buy Jinko.

• 1:05:21Speaker 04

  You know, you know who'd be more successful with it? John Cena, also certified jorts wearer, from what I

• 1:05:26Andrew Santino?

  He's a big jorts dog. I shot a movie with him. I lived my dream. I shot a movie with him and Pete Farrelly.

• 1:05:31Speaker 04

  Fuck, which one?

• 1:05:32Andrew Santino?

  I shot a movie called Ricky Stanicki, me, him and Zac Efron down in Australia. It was on Amazon.

• 1:05:36Speaker 04

  I was gonna say.

• 1:05:36Andrew Santino?

  We never hit the theaters.

• 1:05:37Speaker 04

  Title.

• 1:05:38Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, we never hit the theaters.

• 1:05:39Speaker 04

  Who's in it?

• 1:05:40Andrew Santino?

  Me, Cena and Zac Efron.

• 1:05:42Speaker 04

  How was that?

• 1:05:43Andrew Santino?

  It was fucking ama- I mean, it's a dream come true.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  Where'd you shoot it?

• 1:05:45Andrew Santino?

  In Australia.

• 1:05:46Speaker 04

  So you got to

• 1:05:47Andrew Santino?

  Melbourne.

• 1:05:48Speaker 04

  For how long?

• 1:05:49Andrew Santino?

  We were there for two and a half months, something like that.

• 1:05:52Speaker 04

  Oh, they there's a land of white people down there. You must have been one of us.

• 1:05:56Andrew Santino?

  Look at a orangutan. Yeah, look at a little orangutan. Yeah, they call you orangutan. Yeah, they call you the orangas. No, but we shot, I shot with Farrelly, like you said about your daughter with Tarantino. As a kid.

• 1:06:06Speaker 04

  Were you a big Something About Mary fan?

• 1:06:08Andrew Santino?

  Farrelly's, the Farrelly brothers made everything that I ever loved. I mean, everything I ever loved. And so And I like Pete more than Bobby, kidding. But Pete, no, no, but Pete.

• 1:06:16Speaker 04

  Deep cuts, man.

• 1:06:16Andrew Santino?

  No, no, but but working with Pete was like, that was the thing, what you said about your daughter. When when anybody asked me, they're like, What do you want to do in your career or whatever? I'm like, I've done, I hope I get to keep doing it, but If you check, if I got to check out now, I I it was

• 1:06:29Speaker 04

  You were like, when you get up there, when at the pearly gates.

• 1:06:33Andrew Santino?

  Wherever it is.

• 1:06:34Speaker 04

  Before they judge, before they do anything, I like to think when they get there, they're like, how was it?

• 1:06:39Andrew Santino?

  Like, pretty fucking cool.

• 1:06:40Speaker 04

  Get your moment to yelp it up and be like, Mid, two stars, you know, or whatever the fuck. But, you know, it could have been better, and here's how. But to be up there and be like, are you fucking kidding me? I got to work with fucking one of the Farrelly brothers, the one I like.

• 1:06:55Andrew Santino?

  I couldn't have been

• 1:06:56Speaker 04

  And this guy.

• 1:06:57Andrew Santino?

  I couldn't have been happier. It was incredible. And when you write, when you write the next iteration of Archie and you put me in it, I'm very excited for that.

• 1:07:02Speaker 04

  Bro, you want to be in a Kevin Smith movie. I'm not even kidding.

• 1:07:04Andrew Santino?

  Say less.

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  So easy. You just have to be there when it happens.

• 1:07:07Andrew Santino?

  I'll be here.

• 1:07:08Speaker 04

  Done and done.

• 1:07:08Andrew Santino?

  Just make it happen. Tell me. Who owns Jinko?

• 1:07:11Speaker 05

  The original owner reacquired it in 2019, Milo Riva.

• 1:07:15Andrew Santino?

  Damn it.

• 1:07:15Speaker 04

  Are you serious? That's romantic, though. How awesome.

• 1:07:20Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, but that hurts my heart a little bit because now you're definitely not gonna get it.

• 1:07:22Speaker 04

  I don't need it. But what I do need to get in touch with them and be like, "Bro, 13 inches is the sweet spot."

• 1:07:27Andrew Santino?

  Say the name, say the name of the gentleman.

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  Milo Riva.

• 1:07:30Speaker 04

  Let's put it out there.

• 1:07:31Andrew Santino?

  Shout out to Milo Riva, if you're listening, which let's tag, uh, tag as many people can find Milo Riva, that Kevin really needs the continuation of the 13-inch.

• 1:07:40Speaker 04

  Also, easy to work with, licensing agreements, in the pits, like, costs nothing to do a Kevin Smith Jinko line.

• 1:07:48Andrew Santino?

  Let's do the collab.

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  In one of the incarnations of Jinko, they did, I had, they sent me protos of Kevin Smith jorts. And it had the Silent Bob Hawks logo I used to wear on my jersey all the time, um, on the jean pocket and stuff. So, uh, they, you know, unfortunately, they were too big, they don't fit anymore and shit. But for, for a red hot minute, it was gonna exist, so, Jinko.

• 1:08:13Andrew Santino?

  Can we make this happen again? Let's put the, there it is. That's it, dude. Let's, let's shake this back into reality, please, fans at home.

• 1:08:20Speaker 04

  Like, you, I mean, I know Cena's like, well, may, well more, way more well-known, and if you do a John Cena line, naturally, fucking, you'll be selling to like, all the wrestling crowd, but there are some, there are few middle-aged men still around who will commit to a life

• 1:08:36Andrew Santino?

  Yes.

• 1:08:37Speaker 04

  in jorts. But don't make it good enough that, you know, they gotta rebuy every year, otherwise, what's the fucking point? So why don't you make some disposable Jinko?

• 1:08:44Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, yes.

• 1:08:46Speaker 04

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:08:47Andrew Santino?

  Like paper straws.

• 1:08:47Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:08:48Andrew Santino?

  Make it so they wear out, man. Make it so they wear out. Uh, I appreciate you so very much for coming on the show, man. It means the world to me.

• 1:08:56Speaker 04

  Having me. I feel bad we didn't whiskey it up.

• 1:08:58Andrew Santino?

  No, that's okay. You're not a big whiskey guy. You told me before the show.

• 1:09:01Speaker 04

  I'm not, I don't drink at all, and not because I'm like, I'm trying to live sober or some shit. I, I've never liked the taste of booze, even in high school. So hard to go to high school keggers and shit, cuz I was like...

• 1:09:11Andrew Santino?

  Not even beer.

• 1:09:12Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:09:12Andrew Santino?

  No.

• 1:09:13Speaker 04

  Especially beer.

• 1:09:13Andrew Santino?

  What about, what about a little bit of weed? A little bit of sweet?

• 1:09:16Speaker 04

  Back in the day, it was a huge fucking thing.

• 1:09:18Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, but no, when, how long has that been gone out of your life?

• 1:09:20Speaker 04

  Uh, I went crazy two and a half years ago, so then.

• 1:09:23Andrew Santino?

  Two and a half?

• 1:09:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, cuz I went into this joint, uh, Sierra Tucson. Uh, kids, if you ever feel yourself slipping from the grasp of, uh, reality, or in, in need of mental help, I don't care how old you are, race, creed, or color, uh, or, or what, uh, gender you are, for heaven's sakes, uh, don't ever hesitate to ask for help. I did, and that's the whole reason we're having this conversation right now. So, when I was in there, I was in for a month, and I was like, oh shit, I haven't smoked weed for a month. Like, let me see how long I can keep this going. So it was fifteen years, um, that I had been smoking weed. And so I was like, let me try to keep going for another fifteen. I don't think I'm gonna make it. Because when I started this journey, the world wasn't as fucked up as it is right now.

• 1:10:06Speaker 04

  So, if I was ever, what a great place for an ad. If I was ever going to, to, uh, fall off the wagon, it would be for this. On June sixth, Jeter, we're doing a collab, as the kids say. Jeter, uh, is doing the donut joint for National Donut Day, and this year it is powered by Jay and Silent Bob's Blunt Man's Chronic.

• 1:10:28Andrew Santino?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:10:28Speaker 04

  That is the strain. This is one of the most powerful joints on the planet. It has a resin stick in the middle that, as you smoke it, looks like a donut. This is my gift to you.

• 1:10:36Andrew Santino?

  Oh, my god, thank you, sir. This is amazing.

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  There's weed.

• 1:10:40Andrew Santino?

  This is wonderful. I need both. I gotta be honest with you.

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  Greens, uh, sometime need greens. I need both.

• 1:10:45Andrew Santino?

  I, I do like both.

• 1:10:46Speaker 04

  Fucking whiskey, you're like, it ain't enough.

• 1:10:48Andrew Santino?

  We do enjoy both. I mean, we do like to dabble a little bit, especially because, uh...

• 1:10:52Speaker 04

  It's a good one. June sixth, it comes out, I think there's only like fucking five hundred, and then they sell it.

• 1:10:56Andrew Santino?

  June sixth, it's gonna be out. We'll put the link in the description down below, by the way, and also...

• 1:11:00Speaker 04

  June fifth, Dogma.

• 1:11:01Andrew Santino?

  June fifth, get your ass to the theater. Do the right thing.

• 1:11:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. Especially if you're a fucking, if you're a whiskey ginger fan, you're like, I want him in the next fucking movie and shit.

• 1:11:10Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, if you want, please, if you, if you want this thing to come to fruition.

• 1:11:13Speaker 04

  The only, the only new, next movie happens if people like the old movie when we re-release it.

• 1:11:16Andrew Santino?

  Go see it, get your ass out, please. Uh, we end the episode the same way. You look into that camera, you say one word or one phrase. Sometimes people did a phrase or imparting wisdom. Some people just want to say one word to end the episode whenever you're ready.

• 1:11:30Speaker 04

  Kids, your voice is your currency. Um, spend it across this life. And I don't mean just by going out and telling people like, here's my opinion about fucking Superman. You can spend time on the internet, that's fun, but don't waste your life on the internet. Let people know your story. Your story is valuable and it's interesting. It's different from mine, different than his, different than hers and shit like that. So there's value to it. And I know a lot of people, uh, have bastardized this world, uh, word and made it mean fucking something it don't, but I'm here to tell you right now, you're a fucking snowflake. And I mean that in the best possible way, because that means you're unique and different than everybody else. That uniquity, i- it's valuable. I've spent my life using my voice, so to speak. Your voice is this simple.

• 1:12:11Speaker 04

  How you perceive the world and how you spit it back to the world. How you translate the world and life back to the audience, back to any audience. Back to even just somebody you're having a conversation with. Your voice is your currency and we're all in this together, right? Like fucking, nobody gave us a handbook, so we don't know what's going on. We share information. That's how we proceed. That's how we move ahead. And since you're a human being and I'm a human being, we share the human condition, but your journey has been incredibly different than mine, snowflake. It's very different. So because of that, I can glean things that I haven't learned about my own life. So your story is valuable. It's worth something. Emerging artists always think about doing something that's been done before. You know, mimicking something that has had success. You can try that, it could work. But why not die on the cross of originality? Tell them something they've never heard before.

• 1:12:54Speaker 04

  I walk into a room, I say Clerks 19, they're like, fuck, yet again. You can walk into a room and tell them the thing they've been waiting to hear their whole fucking lives. The reason they got into the movie business and film financing in the first place, because they're like, I just want to tell fucking amazing stories. You have an amazing story. You've lived an amazing story. Find a way to tell it, to share it with the world. And if you can monetize it, even better. But- If you can, even if you're just doing it for free, you're interesting and you're beautiful and you're smart and you've got something to say, man. Tell them who you are. Let this world know who you are before you leave it, this best of all possible worlds. And I don't mean by, you know, by gunning people down on your way out. No, by sharing your experience, your journey and what you've learned, man. This, you count, you matter and we need that information that you got.

• 1:13:39Speaker 04

  Think about it, man. Fucking, we're all just diodes in some gigantic fucking program. You're just as important to this diode or whatever the fuck I am. So, share that information, share your story.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  In here, we pour whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey.

• 1:13:56Speaker 06

  Oh, that creature in the ginger beard! Sturdy, ginger. Like vampires, the ginger gene is a curse.

• 1:14:02Speaker 03

  Gingers are beautiful. You owe me five dollars for the whiskey and seventy-five dollars for the horse.

• 1:14:07Speaker 06

  Ginger, oh hell no. This whiskey is excellent.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  Ginger, I like gingers.