I don't want to live in a world where I could say to my daughter, 'There used to be turtles that swam in the ocean.'
In my garden, which is a big garden, I have one part that is my bird garden, and every morning, 365 days a year, they get buckets of food - for the birds, for the squirrels, the chipmunks and the turtles in the summer.
I loved these turtles that were somehow mutants and teenagers, and they were ninjas. How cool is that?
I kept a few turtles and tortoises and maybe a snake in my apartment in New York City, off and on. Maybe sometimes against my better judgment.
Later in life, I started an organization that works to save tortoises and turtles that are threatened, but in full disclosure, I still always had a fascination with people who kept animals.
I was a kid that loved reptiles and eventually started an organization dedicated to saving turtles and tortoises, called the Turtle Conservancy, where we protect land and basically do species conservation around the world.
Every Halloween for six years, I was a Ninja Turtle, and Mikey was my favorite. The turtles really made me who I am today. They got me into martial arts, meditation, surfing, skateboarding; big time influence on who I am today.
The two are unrelated. I'm not into turtles or space stuff.
I can do a backflip on the spot. I learned how from watching 'Ninja Turtles' movies as a kid. Whenever the Turtles got in trouble with their teacher, Master Splinter, he'd make them practice backflips as punishment - and I was so focused on becoming one of the Turtles that I taught myself how to do one, too.
Some of us are turtles; we crawl and struggle along, and we haven't maybe figured it out by the time we're 30. But the turtles have to keep on walking.
