DEATH IS A GASTROPOD (aka Why I Make Movies)

It has been over a month since my last blog, and so far I must say that everything has gone according to plan. I finally saw BRUNO, which was just as disappointing and lame as I expected. I saw UP IN THE AIR, which I loved and it has quickly joined A SERIOUS MAN, THE HURT LOCKER and WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE in my list of favorite films from 2009 (yeah, that’s right... WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, I don’t care what you think, I loved it!). However, I haven’t even seen CRAZY HEART or BROKEN EMBRACES yet (and if there are 3 things I love to see in movies it’s Jeff Bridges and Penelope Cruz).

But enough about movies and jokes... life is about so much more than that. Which is why for my 2^nd installment in the blogosphere I have decided to discuss... GASTROPODS.

gastropod |ˈgastrəˌpäd| noun

a large class of mollusks which includes snails, slugs, whelks, and all terrestrial kinds. They have a large muscular foot for movement and (in many kinds) a single asymmetrical spiral shell.

My marine biologist friend and I were having one of those “if the ocean had ears” conversations over soup and salad when she told me about gastropods--derived from the Latin “gastro” for stomach and “pod” for foot. You see... carnivorous gastropods, such as many sea snails, will slowly pull themselves along the ocean floor with this muscular foot until they come across a tasty little meal, such as a clam. They slide ontop of the clam and that “muscular foot” of theirs doubles as a drill that slowly penetrates the clam’s shell.

You know when you’re walking down the beach and you find a shell with a perfectly circular hole right at the base. Or (for you non coastal dwelling readers) you see a shell on some hippie’s hemp necklace with that hole? That hole is from a gastropod.

It sits ontop of this clam, slowly drilling through the shell until it finally breaks through and sluuuuuurp! sucks the clam out of its protective shell and devours it.

So, now imagine you’re a clam... and you have ears... you’d actually be able to hear this dastardly gastropod drilling through your safe little home, slowly but surely, you can hear death approaching.

Now, if you want to get really Matrix about it... one could say that our lives, the world around us, is a protective shell. We keep our heads down and go about our days, shuffling to and fro on the ocean floor. But there’s something amiss... A nagging fear or stress that you can hear slowly drilling through the safe, protective reality that you’ve built around yourself.

Until the day when that drill finally breaks through and you get slurped up (or down, depending on your religious beliefs).

So that’s what I mean, when I say Death is a Gastropod. That nagging awareness of your own mortality. We can hear it every day, lingering in the back of our consciousness and yet we are powerless to stop it. How you react to this knowledge is what often defines you.

Do you live in fear or constant stress about things out of your control? Or, do you utilize it? Listen to the drilling sound and use it to tune your guitar and create a 2-part harmony.

In a roundabout way that’s how I feel about cinema. Filmmaking is my psychologist. I don’t need to lay back on a chaise lounge or pop Xanax to escape the constant drill of my gastropod.

I choose to focus my fears, stress, ideas and passions onto the screen.

So, there you go....

My next blog will come sooner... Check back in a couple weeks for more light-hearted Oscar blog, tentatively titled: MY OSCAR PREDICTIONS (AND WHY THEY PROBABLY WON’T WIN).