jaws

I saw Jaws with my friend Tray Dipello and his mom back in the 70s.  It scared the crap out of me.  I mean I didn't think it was possible for a movie to be any scarier than Jaws.

I remember during one scene where this rope gets wrapped around Chief Body's legs on the edge of the Orca, I jerked my own legs up instinctively, feeling like I was going to get pulled overboard and eaten right in the movie theatre.

And then, afterwards, like many millions of Americans I became afraid to swim in the ocean.    As soons as I got chest deep in water I could imagine a 20 foot great white turning straight for me, ready to chomp me to pieces.

So whenever I went to the beach with my family I would pretty much just sit on the shore and play with sand or whatever, eventhough I was 11 or 12 years old.

"Why don't you come swimming with us?" my Nanny would ask.

"Because he's afraid of sharks," my sister would say.

"No, I'm not!" I would say.

But I obviously was.  But I was more than just afraid of sharks, I was pretty fascinated by them as well.  In fact, I was fascinated by the fear they created in people (like me).  I used to day dream a lot about having my own remote control mechanical shark.  With it, I would be able to sit secretly on the shore holding some sort of joy-stick and guide my shark towards and group of unsuspecting swimmers (like my family).  With the push of a button my mechanical shark would lunge out of the water and snap its jaws at a victim (like my sister).

(Actually, I don't think my imaginary shark was that complex.  I think all it could do was swim around and show people its fin.  But whatever).

By the time I was a freshman in highschool I started to become interested in making movies.  I wanted to be a movie director like Steven Spielberg, the director of Jaws.

Lacking any better ideas I decided to write a movie script about a giant shark that attacks people.  I still have the typewritten shark script twenty years later.  Here is an excerpt:

The dorsal fin broke the surface, moving through the water like a torpedo.  Frank's hand contacted Joe's, just as the gaping mouth emerged from behind and closed like a vise around his side.  Frank let out a terrible scream.  Joe shouted in desperation, filled with astonishment and disbelief as he felt the hand of his longtime friend pulled beneath the cold murky waters.  Ted stood frozen by fear, with his eyes fixed on a stream of blood trailing in the current.

The shark script didn't really go anywhere plot-wise.  In fact, it just became sillier and sillier as the shark somehow travels across the country in a semi  trailer filled with water, and then starts attacking people in their homes.

Not long after writing my shark script, I got a super 8 camera and made a movie about a shopping cart that chases people and attacks them.  I probably would have rather made a shark movie, but it was just easier to film a shopping cart rolling down the street, and I got the idea when I found a shopping cart close to my house in St. Petersburg, FL. 

The only actor in my shopping cart movie was Tom Foster.  (Today Tom works in the David Letterman mail room, and has appeared in many Letterman skits, and written a few dozen jokes that Letterman has read on the air).

Here's a plot synopsis of my shopping cart movie:

Tom, walking down the street and reading a magazine, notices a shopping cart is slowly following him. 

Tom drops the magazine and runs.  He tries to get in his house through the garage, but the door is locked.  When the shopping cart catches up with Tom in the garage, he turns and fights it with a rake.

After beating the cart back with a rake, Tom runs again, all the way around the house.  He finds a rope, lassoes the chimney and pulls himself up to the roof.  (I got in trouble when my dad saw that we were on the roof).

Once on the roof, Tom goes through his window, into his bedroom and starts reading another magazine.

Just when he thinks he is safe and sound, the shopping cart bursts through his second story door and surprises Tom.

The end.

As short and simple as the shopping cart movie was, it was pretty much the only complete movie I ever made.  Later movies would just be some half-thought out scenes that never went anywhere.  As I got older, I felt kind of funny and stupid about making super 8 movies with shopping carts and things and I just started drinking beer instead.

Anyway....jaws.  Somehow over the years, I overcame my fear of sharks.  Twice in the past two years I went swimming around barrier reefs where nurse sharks were ubiquitous.  Then in key west, I came within twenty feet of an 8ft shark of some kind, possibly a reef shark.  It was just hovering there, a dark spooky silhouette in the dusk waters.  For some reason I wasn't scared at all.

But now I'm deathly afraid of flying on airplanes.

8:31:43 PM