Unrelated Ramblings

I listen to a few podcasts, mostly short fiction ones (many of which I've mentioned before), but my favourite one is SModcast, which is the podcast filmmaker Kevin Smith and Producer Scott Mosier do together.

Podcasts really fascinate me, mostly because they're something anyone can do. I've wanted to be a radio DJ for a lot of years, and still enjoy doing audiobooks of stories written by me or my friends. My buddy Merrill, for more than a year now, has been wanting to get a podcast together and do it, in a mad bid for fame and wealth. He seemed really excited about it yesterday, and a secret, scared part of me thinks he'll go ahead with it by himself, or worse, with one of his new friends that's so much cooler than me.*

Please ignore the last paragraph. Like I was saying, Kevin Smith's hilarious, incredibly foul-mouthed podcast is endlessly entertaining, and it fosters a crazy notion that I know Kevin and Scott, since I hear from them way more often than I do my father.

The most recent SModcast was a little different, as it was initially hosted by Kevin and his young daughter, Harley Quinn. They bantered a little bit and he asked her about her interests, and seemed very affectionate toward her.

I am reminded of the one time I met Harley. It was the last one of Kevin's signings at his Secret Stash comic book store in L.A.. The lines are interminable, because a) Kevin insists on greeting and chatting with every fan in the line; b) many more people than could possibly fit into the store in the alloted time show up; and c) because Kevin takes approximately nineteen smoke breaks an hour, and California law requires him to get up and go outside to do it.

I swear, every time, that it'll be the last time ("Never again is what you swore . . . the time before"), but that one really was the last time. Kevin and Jason Lee were there, and for part of the signing, Kevin's wife Jennifer brought Harley by to visit him. For fun, he sat her down next to him while he signed autographs, and she got some crayons out and drew flowers and princesses and Golgothan shitmonsters like every normal girl does.As my turn finally came close to arriving, I heard Harley (who would've been six or seven back then) tell her dad that she wanted to sign her name too. He tried to explain how autographs worked, but she didn't really get it, since she had been in movies by then herself. The guy two people ahead of me addressed her, though, and I figured he would be cool and have her sign his DVD, but instead, he said, "I sure wish your dad was my dad." The guy was about thirty-six years old, so she didn't know how to respond, and eventually the line moved up.

On my turn, I thought it would be funny to go immediately to Harley, forgoing Kevin altogether. I got out my MALLRATS poster (given to me by lawyer extraordinaire Ian "The White Tim Meadows" Puente), and said, "You can sign this if you want to, Kevin, but I'd really like Harley's autograph." She scrawled her name in gigantic Sharpie letters, and then I gave the poster to Kevin.

"I love you, sir," he wrote above his name.

Rish "Wouldbe Son of William Shatner" Outfield

*Do you have friends who start hanging out with someone new, someone who seems to have a lot more to offer than you do? If not, it could be that YOU are that friendship-stealer to someone else, and you should be ashamed of yourself.