Kevin Smith and yoga, eh? Yeah, right. No, really. Director Kevin Smith has a new film up his sleeves and it sounds like something between “Clerks” and his yet-to-be-released “Tusk” and involves some yogi crime and hijinks. Entitled “Yoga Hoser” the film is based off of Smith’s Smodcast #288 where he read through a news article about an Edmonton yoga dude who was charged with possessing a stolen 5th century BC Persian sculpture worth $1.2 million.
The man in question, Simon Metke, claims he had no idea the sculpture was a stolen artifact (it was missing from Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts since September 2011) and told the Edmonton Journal he bought it from his “starving artist” friend for a mere $1,400 with intentions of figuring out its origin, maybe bringing it on “Antiques Roadshow,” which, we have to admit, is kind of funny.
“I hope that people will understand, this is just something I thought was neat,” Metke said in his defense. “This was an interesting piece of art that I could put on the shelf and have represent my own personal spiritual journey that I was going through.”
Metke had the piece sitting on his shelf for two years next to stuffed animals and a plastic Star Was spaceship, as the report goes, which you know is why Kevin Smith even found this article at all. When the police finally tracked the sculpture down to Metke’s apartment they also found marijuana. (Seriously? Kevin Smith clearly has a google alert for “Star Wars and weed”!) Metke was charged with possession of stolen property and he and his girlfriend were charged with trafficking marijuana and possession of money obtained by crime.
Describing the bust, Metke was quoted as saying, “There’s like 20 RCMP officers flooding my place, the sunshine’s coming in, the crystals are making rainbows everywhere, the bougainvillea flowers are glowing in the sunrise light.”
Woo boy. Of course, Smith and his co-podcaster Scott Mosier thought this was HIGH-larious, reading through the details in Canadian accents, littered with the adorable “ehs” of our Northern brothers and sisters. And Yoga Hoser was born. But is it funny enough for a film? Smith seriously thinks so, and he’s since confirmed its existence on the high holy date of 4/20.
He announced on twitter: “On 4/20, it’s only appropriate that I have just completed the 117 page First Draft of YOGA HOSERS …”
Filming is set to start in August and will co-star Smith’s daughter as, wait for it, a convenience store clerk. Rumor has it Johnny Depp will take on the role of Guy Lapointe, a Canadian character also popping up in “Tusk,” another one of Smith’s podcast-based films .
As for Metke, we think Smith at least owes him a walk-on role for being the inspiration and butt of the Yoga Hoser joke. (A hoser, by the way, is old Canadian hockey slang for “loser” or “idiot”.)
“It’s not strange to me that the story has been noticed, it’s sort of strange, intense and out there,” Metke said. “But I don’t consider myself a hoser, by any means. And I really respect yoga.” He says he was “honored” to have had the art piece for the time he did and feels a bit bad about the whole thing: “I feel a little bit ashamed on behalf of the yoga community that I’ve somehow synergistically fused yoga and hoser together just because of some guy’s shallow interpretation of me.”
Poor Metke. Don’t worry, we may laugh at your expense, but we won’t let this affect the yoga community too much. Look on the bright side, @yogahoser is still available on twitter!
The #YogaHoser trend has already inspired some twitter fan art:
via @christina_hope
via @travisteaspoon
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Earlier…
The film is pretty cool. I love it a lot. All the latest movies are available on TeaTV app for Android.