Why you 100% need to see NJ’s Kevin Smith’s ‘Clerks 3’ road trip (Opinion)

New Jersey film director Kevin Smith is a true renaissance man. He directs. He writes. He acts. He podcasts. He runs a podcasting studio. He’s had a hand in pop-up restaurants. Should I stop? No. Because he’s also doing film screenings in person with a Q&A on a “Clerks 3” road trip that would be well worth attending.

First I’ll tell you where then I’ll tell you why you should go.

Where:

Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre at the Count Basie Center for the Arts
99 Monmouth St.
Red Bank, NJ
Sunday September 4

Tickets go on sale Friday July 8 at 10 a.m. and range from $30 to $79 at thebasie.org.

Why:

Because spending time around Kevin Smith makes you feel smarter, happier, better. I know because I had the opportunity.

Kevin Smith is arguably the greatest storyteller alive. There’s never any pretense about him. And if there ever is he’ll be the first one to call himself out on it and make you laugh. I’ve seen this guy tell a story that you couldn’t possibly walk away from, maybe not even if your wife was in labor and had to get to the hospital. He’s just that good.

I once saw a video of him doing a Q & A when someone asked if it was true that he did an unreleased documentary on Prince. Where a one minute answer could have sufficed, instead he launched into a full telling of the weirdest and funniest several days-long encounter with the Purple one. I swear it was one of the most riveting, funniest things you could ever see.

The time I got to spend a full hour with Kevin Smith interviewing him live on-air for a show I was doing in Detroit he told a story about J. Lo showing up at his house late one night because of relationship troubles with Ben Affleck. Kevin was friends with both of them.

You had no idea where the story was going and you would have never guessed where it went. He did a full accounting of a top-shelf, high-caliber superstar like J. Lo smelling up his bathroom and then nervously, awkwardly jetting from his home when Kevin realized moments later he had never replaced the toilet paper and one of his towels was missing.

Then there was the storytelling that was actually in the greatest scene of his movie “Chasing Amy.” Playing Silent Bob sitting across from Ben Affleck in a diner, the scene called for him to drop his silence and tell a full story of Bob's blowing it with an ex, Amy. It was a story about how she could have been the one if he had just been more evolved, the regret of his past emotions and a scene Kevin Smith acted so well I swear to God he deserved an Academy award.

No one tells a story with the intelligence, confidence, ease and humor like Kevin Smith. A “Clerks 3” road trip would be worth seeing even if it didn’t come with the movie screening.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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