“There is a non-zero chance that Patrick Stewart could be involved in our Kickstarter,” I remember saying to Jim, quietly, while seated at Midori, while shoving a spicy tuna lunch combo into my facehole.
Turns out, the non-zero chance was all the chance we needed. Originally, we assumed the shoot would be in Brooklyn, where Sir Patrick and his lovely wife Sunny have a Park Slope residence. We’d take Jim’s minivan and my aging and now deceased Nissan Xterra with the roof box for all our gear. But four days before it was supposed to take place, we learned it was going to be in LA. Oh. Crap. But we pulled it together – borrowing lighting and gear from Marty DelVecchio (one of the best dudes you will ever meet), bringing our local gem of a filmmaker Stephanie Cornell with us, as well as my boss Iain and Jim’s business partner Eric, who is every bit as snarky as Jim but with a newer Subaru. We’ll get into the insane story at a later time, but we basically went in as a ragtag group of misfits and pulled off a pretty great looking film with no previous access to the location or talent. At one point, Jim was lying on the floor of the hotel room I shared with Stephanie, completely unable to process how we would pull this off – but we did. Nailed it!
Jim’s actually shitting his pants in this screengrab.
So here we are. After months of work, we finally launched last week at a pretty Clam-oriented party down at Maritime Gloucester. Last year, when the Market Basket story catapulted us into mid-level local notoriety, I thought we had made it big. I mean, hell, Esquire? Fuck yeah. But now we’re getting somewhere even crazier. And again, the story isn’t us – it’s about something bigger than us, better than us. But we wrote the script, we wrote the copy, we “acted”, we edited, re-edited, almost kicked each other square in our respective genitals – and we’re proud of how it’s going. We just got picked up by NBC News. We’re in the Globe. Popsci. Your beloved The Clam is making you proud – hopefully.
But, we need help still. We’re a long way away from our goal, and if you’re unfamiliar with how Kickstarter works, we only keep the money if we meet our goal of $225,000. It’s a terrifying position for us to be in, but we need to have faith that our project is worthwhile. We’re making a difference not only in marine research, but with a positive use of robotics amid a world where drones are still synonymous with military use or with those dipshits who fly them into crowds during holiday weekends.
Or this.
And we’re here making a change for Gloucester. All the people who want the waterfront to stay marine-focused, clap yo’ hands! Hey, look what’s going on in the Paint Factory, right under your noses! This should be exactly what we want to stay in town – it provides jobs *coughminecough* and makes Gloucester look pretty damn innovative and awesome. But, in order for that to happen, everyone needs to step up and support it. The Paint Factory nearly became condos. Instead, Ocean Alliance took a huge risk and bought it. They’re bringing robotics and remote controlled flight projects to our kids – the weekly robotics club offers a chance to make your own foam RC Plane, or fly a drone without breaking the bank – providing any kid, regardless of ability to pay, with a way to interact in a fun STEM-based environment. They do cool stuff, man.
I won’t ask you too many more times (lies), but if you’ve been a fan of The Clam, please help us reach our goal. We need to go into the future with the best technology we can muster in order to save the oceans and save the damn planet. If you won’t help us reach our goal so we can go out and research – for Gloucester, for science, for whales, for humans – who will?