Our best wishes to Kevin Smith

Scary news about Kevin Smith. A 100% blockage of his LAD artery. It's a miracle he survived this massive heart attack and what a tragedy it would have been to lose him at only 47 years old. He was between 2 shows in California when he wasn't feeling right and then suffered what doctors call a widowmaker heart attack before the second show.

Reaching out from his hospital bed as he recovers, the filmmaker was reflective and poignant in saying, "I’ve had a great life: loved by parents who raised me to become the individual I am. I’ve had a weird, wonderful career in all sorts of media, amazing friends, the best wife in the world and an incredible daughter who made me a Dad. But as I stared into the infinite, I realized I was relatively content. Yes, I’d miss life as it moved on without me - and I was bummed we weren’t gonna get to make #jayandsilentbobreboot before I shuffled loose the mortal coil. But generally speaking, I was okay with the end, if this was gonna be it."

I had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Smith twice, once at the very beginning of his career and once in the mid 2000's. He is such a great guy and one of the most entertaining guests you could ask for.

It was back in 1994, the first year we started on New Jersey 101.5 radio that we heard about this small black and white movie coming out that a Jersey dude had made by betting on himself and maxing out every credit card he had. That was Kevin Smith and the movie was Clerks. I remember going to see it with Bill Doyle at Princeton Market Fair shortly before having him on the show. We were blown away at the intelligent writing and Smith's skill.

It won awards at that year's Cannes Film Festival and even though it was never released on more than 50 screens across the country at the same time it managed to earn $3 million. Not bad considering Kevin made it for $27,000. To this day Bill and I quote that movie both on and off air..."I'm not even supposed to BE here today!" The interview was fun, open and honest and Kevin Smith quickly became one of my favorite people.

About a decade later when we had taken a job offer in Detroit Kevin Smith was passing through and stopped by the station there in person. We were doing afternoon drive, just like here, and he was at the end of doing interviews all day and was dead tired but you would never have known it to hear him on air. Plus he was so generous with his time he stayed with us almost an entire hour when he really didn't have to. And the storytelling this man can do is EPIC.

This one was my favorite, although I can't tell it like he could.

He was friends with both Jennifer Lopez and Ben Afleck. He told us this hysterical thing about how J Lo came to his home after some sort of spat between her and Ben. She needed someone to vent to. Being a good friend they sat up and Kevin fed her tissues as she poured her heart out about the situation. So finally J Lo asks Kevin if she can use his bathroom. He says sure, asks if she wants another drink and she says yes. She goes to the bathroom, he goes to the kitchen for drinks. Then he waits. And waits. And waits. He finally realizes, "Oh man, J Lo is dropping a deuce in my bathroom, okay." A few more minutes pass and suddenly the door flies open and J Lo is tearing down the hall clutching her purse protectively muttering something almost incomprehensible about just needing to leave. Kevin, almost stammering in confusion now, is trying to ask if things are okay, and he's in mid-sentence when she blows straight out the front door.

So he's thinking okay, that was strange. So you needed to, you know, do that, but geez we're all human no big deal. Then he starts cleaning the place up, putting the tissue box away, glasses in the sink, etc.. Then he sees the bathroom light was left on. He goes in to turn it off and realized to his horror that the toilet paper roll had been empty the whole time and he had forgotten to replace it before she ever came over. Then he turns around and realizes that his hand towel is missing. Yes, according to Kevin (who told this story far funnier than I could here), Jennifer Lopez in a moment of desperation resorted to using a hand towel then panicked and stuffed it in her purse and fled the crime scene.

We wish Kevin Smith a smooth road to recovery and hopefully many years to come!

More from New Jersey 101.5