“I don’t care if we’re nominated for best morons, because I’d think, well, I got nominated with Ben, and that’s pretty cool.” 

–Matt Damon, on pre-Oscar buzz for their movie Good Will Hunting 

“If I ever woke up with a dead hooker in my hotel room, Matt would be the first person I’d call.”

–Ben Affleck

Buddy. Chum. Soul Mate. Alter ego. Better half.

We all deserve a life-long friend.  Someone who compliments us.  Someone who brings out our strengths. Someone who can call us on our shit.  Someone who knows our shortcomings and both forgives us for them and helps us to surpass them.  But finding that person is easier said then done. The journey of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to super stardom (both in fact and in the fictionalization you will see tonight) is the story of this kind of true friendship; it’s a story of two guys who bring out the best (and worst) in one another.  Ben is the Yin to Matt’s Yang.

Whatever you think you know about these two guys, you know this much to be true.  Like the Laurel and Hardy, the Gilmore Girls or Hans Solo and Chewie, they will always be famous for being friends first.

At the start of their journey tonight Matt and Ben are mired in their attempts to adapt Catcher in the Rye into a screen play, a book we were all told in 9th Grade English class is a tome to the inherent self-involvement of human beings.  These two guys transcended that fate and ultimately found success by collaborating.

Call it bro-mance, call it manifest destiny, call it luck, but these two men were fated (inextricably bound) thru the bonds and perspiration of friendship to make a place not just for themselves, but for each other.

Tonight’s show is dedicated to those friends, the ones who have brought us thru the tough times and revealed with us in the good ones.  Those who see us far more clearly then we see ourselves and who make us the best people we can possibly be.  I hope tonight you get to enjoy this show with someone like that.