Two Big Anniversaries
Saturday 4 March 2006 @ 8:32 am

Today, I’ll be presenting at the Independent Spirit Awards (broadcast live on IFC at 2pm PST). The last time I was at the Spirit Awards, I not only won Best Screenplay for “Chasing Amy”, but also, the heart (and vag) of a one Jennifer Schwalbach. Yes, that Spirit Awards ceremony eight years ago represented my first date with Jen. And what a date it was…

I mean, Jesus – she gave up the pussy later that night.

But, mind you, this wasn’t just any ol’ pussy. This was the pussy that changed my life: the pussy that turned me into a married man and Father (and not necessarily in that chronological order, either). This was the pussy that aided and abetted in me falling in love with Jen (although, I could argue that I’d kinda done that when I interviewed with her a month prior).

Shockingly, this’ll be the first time we’ve attended the Spirit Awards since that fateful afternoon. You’d imagine that, based on sentimentality alone, Schwalbach and I would’ve made Spirit Awards attendance an annual thing. And yet, oddly, neither of us have stepped foot in that tent on the beach in Santa Monica in eight years. So today’s being treated as something of an anniversary date (even though, technically, the date of that Spirit Awards/First Fuck in ’98 was March 21st). M’lady and I are getting gussied up (which, for me, means putting on a jacket instead of a shooter), and we’re gonna trip the lights fantastic, waltzing down memory lane, this time hand-in-hand.

And then, post ceremony, we’re gonna bone our brains out – just like we did eight years ago.

Today marks another anniversary in the Askewniverse as well. Peep this…

Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 14:46:16 -0500
From: Kevin
To: ming@umcc.umcc.umich.edu
Subject: Let’s go!

Ming -

Call anytime you’d like (908-842-6933).
I’d love to hear what you’ve thought about thus far. As for me, I’ve
been checking out some other web pages (Film Zone, the Unofficial Kevin Smith home page – which is by some guy who isn’t me, but is named Kevin Smith – and of course yours) and I’m starting to get some ideas:
1) I’d like to have sub-sections about each flick we’ve done so far, with hot-links to other pages already existing.
a) a ‘Clerks’ section, which we can update periodically with any pertinent info – i.e., the animated series, the failed sitcom, reception
around the world, blah, blah, blah. I’ve got a slew of pix that have never seen print we can put up there, as well as updates of what the
cast may be doing or where they can be seen.
b) a ‘Mallrats’ section, with all the same trimmings, including the graphics from the opening of the film (the cool comic book covers).
There’s a slew of footage that didn’t make it into the flick, so we can include them as quick time movies if you want (people would love that –
it’d be the only place to see the lost footage, as the geniuses at MCA are only issuing a standard letterboxed version of the flick on laser disc,
without any cool extras).
c) a ‘Chasing Amy’ section – the film we’re toiling on now. We could talk about the production (pre and post) include some cast impressions
of the flick as it unfolds, show people how it develops (marketing, trailers before they’re in the theatre, etc.). We’ll have video dailies of the movie
while we’re cutting it (on the AVID system) so we can put up scenes that people can take a look at months before the flick gets into theatres!
We can list festival info as well.
2) I’d like to have a Team Askew section, that talks about the movers and shakers here at View Askew, what they’re doing, which ones are going
to be making movies of their own. By being the brains behind this potential Web-site, that makes you a member of the Team, as far as I’m concerned,
so of course there must be a Ming section.
3) A section where we people can order stuff (signed posters, hats, shirts, etc).
4) A section about the smaller budgeted films we’re producing.
5) A section that we can update weekly that’s all gossip about the industry – not necessarily about what we’re doing, but what the studios are doing.
We’re tapped into the system, so we find stuff out long before it sees print (for example, we knew about this George Clooney as Batman thing long
before it was reported). I think people would dig that sort of thing. I know I would.
6) And most importantly – once a week, I’d like to do a chat-room thing, where I can get on and answer questions live and stuff like that. We can
post chat sessions with people from the casts of the flick, as well as just famous people we know. And we could do it every week. Whether five hundred
people show up or only five, I think it’d be neat.

What do you think. I’m sure there’s a shit load more we can and will do. I’d love to hear what you’re planning as well. Call me and let’s go! I’m tres’, tres’ excited – my nipples are hard. Let me know where to send the graphics I have, and if you act now, I’ll send you the original, no studio music, 105 minute cut of ‘Clerks’ that has stuff on it that wasn’t even on the laser disc!
Also, I love the way the ‘Clerks’ page starts. Can we start our page with a moving graphic of the clown from our logo, ‘Vulgar’? Maybe I can get Walter to draw new art for it – Vulgar at a terminal or something?
Yours,
Kevin

Ladies and gentlemen, in that document, emailed ten years ago today, lay the origins of www.viewaskew.com. A few months later, Ming and I took the site live, and it changed both of our lives forever (and, happily, I would stop using terms like “tres’, tres’”).

Ming Chen is, oftentimes, the unsung hero of the Askewniverse. Had I never been directed to his “Clerks” shrine site a decade back, you probably wouldn’t be reading this now. www.viewaskew.com became the stage from which we grew our audience and met so many of the folks who’ve kept me employed for the last ten years. Without Ming, I wouldn’t have been as in-touch with the folks that watch our flicks as I am; and keeping in touch with those folks has made all the difference in not just my career, but my life as well. www.viewaskew.com has shaped and defined my life and career in such a way, that Ming has become about as indispensable to me at this point as Scott Mosier or Jason Mewes is; meaning he’s not just a guy I work with, but also a great sounding board and friend.

The websites in the Askewniverse family number many at this point (www.viewaskew.com, www.clerks2.com, www.silentbobspeaks.com, www.moviepoopshoot.com, www.moviesaskew.com, www.jayandsilentbob.com, www.newsaskew.com, etc., etc); none of them would’ve existed at all, were it not for Ming Chen.

Take a bow, Asian Design Major.





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