- Get up around seven thirty, which bugs me because there are no dogs, and yet still I’m rising early. Jen’s not in bed, so I sleepily call out her name and get a response from the bathroom. She emerges, and I wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. I take a dumpski, do some Listerine, and we call home to talk to Harley. Jen gets blue because there’s a full-blown Mother’s Day celebration going on back at the house, with Chay, Gail, Byron and Harley, and she misses her daughter. As a distraction, we throw on some clothes and head downstairs to look for food.
- We don’t wander far. There’s a Mother’s Day brunch going on in the hotel restaurant. And since Mother’s Day is the (allegedly) busiest day in the food service industry’s calendar, the hotel’s opened their upstairs ballroom and turned in into a makeshift dining room as well – where folks without reservations (like us) are shuffled. We chow down, trying to figure out why the Mother’s Day motif (as represented on both floors, near the buffet table) is a little patch of faux garden with some flowers sprouting up and a small shovel and pitchfork nearby. Wouldn’t a stroller have been more appropriate, as you can be a Mother who’s never been into gardening, but you can’t be a Mother without a kid being in the mix somewhere? “It’s Canada-town, Jake.”
- When we’re done eating, we saunter back to London Drugs to pick up an oscillating fan so Jen can smoke in the room without smoking me out. We grab some water and other stuff too, then stop by Starbucks to latte’ Jen up before lugging our booty back to the hotel.
- Once in the room and in our woobs, Jen lays down and I call my Mom to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day and fill her in on my life since my last call. I was having a Mother’s Day gift made for her, but it’s not done yet, so it may be either a Dad’s Two Year Anniversary gift or morph into an Anniversary gift.
- When I get off the phone, I curl up in bed beside Jen, and we watch a bunch of season six “X-Files” while posting and checking email. Jen sends me a great piece she wrote about our drive that I urge her to post on the board, but she’s feeling a little shy about it, so opts against. It’s the second thing she’s written in the last two weeks (other than all the email she writes to Chay), so I’m thrilled to read it and savor every word.
- Hours slip by, during which time we snack out and eat lunch, all while watching Scully and Mulder run around the very town we’re now in – a fact we’re reminded of when we read this piece in the Province…
The Province wrote:
We’re about to be blessed with the presence of Jennifer Garner and the rumors and paparazzi baggage that travel with her.
As tabloid reports circulate that have the Alias star ready to marry Ben affleck and/or pregnant (not that we’re buying into either), rehearsals for the film Catch and Release get underway in Vancouver this weekend (although at press time, it was looking like it had been pushed back by a few days)
Beau Affleck won’t be around much, considering he’s playing George Reeves in Truth, Justice, and the American Way about the investigation into the supposed suicide of Reeves, who played Superman in the 1950′s TV series. Filming just got under way in Toronto.
However, there’s a lot Affleck related about Catch and Release , besides Garner. Kevin Smith one of his best buddies, has been cast in a big role. Smith, of course, is the writer and director behind early Affleck flicks such as Mallrats, Chasing amy, and Dogma, and appeared as Silent Bob in those flicks.
Also rumored for a role is Jason Lee, who starred in the above Smith flicks.
And there’s the involvement of Jenno Topping (which probably started the whole ball rolling), who is married to Chris Moore, the co-creator of Project Greenlight (among other Affleck related projects), Affleck and Matt Damon’s reality show for budding movie makers. Moore wil be in town to babysit their two kids while Topping works on Catch and Release.
Smith, by the way, is driving here with his wife and young daughter and most likely the couples two dogs, who should be right at home in Vancouver.
After all, their names are Scully and Mulder.
- I use the one-line schedule provided by production to fill in my iCal with all the dates I’m shooting, so as to come up with some idea of when I can and can’t fly home for long weekends and stuff. Jen and I go over it to map out how many times she’ll be coming back to Vancouver before the big move, after Harley’s done with school, when the entire family will come to town. Before we realize it, we’ve pissed away most of the day on “X-Files” and laying around – which was just what the doctor ordered, really. Jen wants a backrub, so she suggests we head downstairs, or take a walk to the water. I counter with suggesting a drive, instead, to take in our surroundings and get our bearings. We argue about this for a few minutes before switching positions on the subject (in arguments, we tend to try to out-think what one another is gonna say next or eventually), then settling on the drive. Harley calls as we’re waiting for the elevator, so I talk to her a bit then pass the phone over to the parent she really wants to talk to. Jen opts against getting into the elevator, so as not to lose cell signal, and I tell her I’m gonna head downstairs and give the valet guy our ticket.
- While waiting for the car downstairs, I run into Olyphant and we chit-chat about the next week’s schedule. Jen joins us, says hi, and then Schwalbach and I are off, into the Vancouver non-night (it’s past eight, yet still very light out).
- I do the Kev/Van ’92 Reality Tour with Jen, first showing her the old location of the Vancouver Film School (on Hamilton), then swinging over the Cambie Bridge to the other side of town, detailing the looooong walk to school I used to take, while searching for the house I lived in during my six month stay (we look for a half hour, but I can’t find it). All the while, I’m having flashbacks to the only time in my life when I was truly lonely. Aside from Mosier (who lived way out in Port Moody), I had no friends in this ‘berg – nobody to hang with. Nobody from back home ever came out to visit me either, and since this was pre-internet, I had very little contact with Jersey. Of all people, Walter was my life-line to Higlands then – writing me handwritten letters detailing the misadventures of Mewes or chatting comics. He always included artwork in his packages, too; indeed, that’s when he’d sent me the drawing of the clown in fishnets that would become our company logo for a decade. For the friend who probably understood what I was doing the least back then (nobody we knew had ever went to film school of thought about making a movie), Walt was my sounding board: I remember writing to him asking if he thought the name View Askew would be good for a production company. I still have all of his letters.
But when I wasn’t trading correspondence with the Flan-Man or at the VFS, I was fucking lonely, kids. Weekends (with no school to break up the day) were the worst. I used to go to the movies a lot, paying to see one flick then staying all day to sneak into whatever else was playing at the multiplex. One weekend, I stayed at Mos’ to watch the Oscars (when “Silence of the Lambs” won), and that was Heaven – just being around a family. But normally, I’d sit in my rented room in the house I stayed with George and Ken (two dudes about ten years older than me) and watch laser discs or write, wondering if I wasn’t wasting my time with this film stuff. But I remember feeling like, in some weird way, I was paying my dues; like after this period of my life, I’d never be lonely again. I remember feeling everything would work out for the best, if I could just buck up and deal with this eight month film school stretch (of which I only made it halfway).
And all of it seemed like a lifetime ago as I drove Jen around, showing her where a Jen-less Kevin would dwell, wondering if he’d ever get to make a film. Thirteen years later, I was about to co-star in someone else’s flick, having already made six of my own. If only I could go back and visit that lonely motherfucker to let him know how well it all works out…
We get back to the city and stop at Chapters (which is like a Borders), where we pick up a shitload of new books for Harley and a few for ourselves. We stop at 7-11 to grab some snacks and look for baby oil (for the massage), but it’s a bust. We get back to the hotel, shuffle to our room, get into our woobs, and pop in “Poltergeist” (which holds up). I spend the rest of the night snacking out (back on the diet tomorrow) while reading all about “Poltergeist” (including the sad story of Dominique Dunne) on the ‘net.
- Post-”geist”, we pop some “X-Files” back in, and fall asleep.