Remain Champagne

28th July 2011

Post with 2 notes

NOT GONNA DO IT.

Got this email yesterday:

Hi Matt,

I’m trying to track down someone who doesn’t like Kevin Smith for a pilot I’m working on and saw your youtube video. I was hoping you might have time to talk about it. I can be reached at the number below or at this email address. Thanks. 

Warmest Regards,

And then the guy’s name and number.

Note how he says he’s “trying to track down someone who doesn’t like Kevin Smith,” as if we’re an endangered species.  Something tells me we’re not.

The video to which he’s referring is a bit where I talked about this guy at Comic Con one year (a long time ago) asking Kevin Smith this question: “Are you ever gonna make a movie that doesn’t suck?” and Smith responds with: “Yeah, just as soon as I pull my cock out of your mother’s ass.”  And if Smith had said that to me, I would’ve said: “Whatever it takes.”

That’s the joke.

I love my work.

True, I don’t care for Kevin Smith.  But beyond saying it and occasionally making jokes about it, I don’t really have anything more to contribute beyond that.  I simply don’t care for what the guy does, and I try (I really do try) not to expend a great deal of energy in repeating it because that would be, well, sad.  Also, the project seemed like one where they corral people who are not Kevin Smith fans into a pen where they’re edited to look like the biggest jerks possible, so I smelled a rat and responded with this:

Hi.

This sure sounds like a trap to me! 

Because it does.

He responded back with this:

Hahaha, not a trap at all. I’m working on a segment where I want to have people who don’t like Kevin Smith engage in a discourse with him. It would be via Skype and done from the comfort of wherever you wanted to be. Not trying to blindside anyway, I just think it could make for a great segment, so I’d like to talk to you about why you don’t like him and find out your interest level. I’m sure we’d be willing to pay you a little something something for your time. Additionally, this is for the pilot so it won’t ever see the light of day, it’ll just be watched by suits somewhere in an office. But if the segment goes well and the show gets picked up it could be a recurring segment. Let me know your thoughts. Happy to discuss more. 

Suits?  Something tells me they don’t wear suits.

This guy’s just doing his job.  I understand.  But I’m not gonna do this thing.  For two main reasons: 1.) Just because I don’t care for Kevin Smith doesn’t mean I care all that much about not caring for Kevin Smith.  And 2.) I absolutely think this will  be set up to make me look stupid.  And I need no help with that.

You know, now that I think of it, I’ve been saying this a lot lately: “If you can’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it on the Internet.”  I think that’s a good rule.  But there I am, on that You Tube video, making a joke about a filmmaker I don’t like, and now I have an opportunity to talk to him in person about how I don’t like him, and I’m not gonna do it.  Why is that?  It’s not the prospect of sitting down with him in person that turns me off.  It’s that if I were to do that, it would have to be part of a show.  It’s the being a part of his show that I have a problem with.  It’s the being at the mercy of his editors that I have a problem with.  And I’m also not saying that I don’t wanna do anything to help him.  That’s not why I’m not gonna do it.  If I ran into him personally and found myself talking to him and the subject naturally progressed to how I don’t care for what he does (a weird progression, admittedly), I’d be able to do it, mainly because I would know that I wasn’t being filmed, presumably.

You know, for someone who says he doesn’t like to expend a great deal of energy in not liking him, this sure is a long post.

I’m glad I typed this all out.  Because it shows me how exhausting it is to hate on someone.


I remain

Champagne