The Gospel According to Spinal Tap

I correlate a lot of happenings in my life to either movies, Simpson's episodes or Family Guy. On any given day I will most likely quote something out of any of the above, the title of this blog being a perfect example.

Last night I watched my number one movie of all time, "This is Spinal Tap". If you have not seen it, you must remedy that immediately. It's a pretty particular type of humor and requires a lot of attention in order to really appreciate and catch all of the one-liner gems, so be prepared. My brother introduced the movie to me when I was very young and had I seen it in the theater I would have asked for my money back. Years later as my artistic palate refined I gave the movie another shot and now it never wanders far from my DVD player.

In one of the scenes where Spinal Tap is performing, they use these individual cocoon contraptions that they step out of when the song begins and ends. Derek Smalls, the bass player, happens to be in the shell that doesn't open and is stuck in it until it serendipitously opens right as the song is ending. He tried so hard to get out of the shell and even had the help of a roadie with a blow torch, but was unsuccessful until it was too late.

How does this have to do with any sort of networking topic? The movie triggered a conversation that led me to the idea for this blog. Last week I talked about getting out there, networking and, of course, smiling. Ironically enough I went to a show this past week and was in a shell of my own and barely even spoke to the people that I knew. As much as I advocate going out and introducing yourself to as many people as you can, there are some times when it just feels impossible... things might have been different if I'd had a roadie with a blow torch, but it is what it is.

The moral of this blog is that if you are occasionally in a mood where you're a little antisocial, don't worry about it because it happens to the best of us. If you happen to think that you're habitually antisocial, try to step out of your shell for a minute and see what happens. Smiling is a great place to start.

Cheers!