Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!
–Rocky Balboa, “Rocky Balboa” (2006)
Sylvester Stallone returned to the ring purportedly for one last round in 2006. Years later, he’d come back for Creed and later this year Creed II. But in 2006, it was 10 years after some friends and I shot a Rockymentary on the making of the original pentalogy, a series which began in 1976 with “Rocky.”
It defined our collegiate careers and in many ways set an artistic bar I’m not sure I ever quite hit again in any of my comm studies classes at UNC Chapel Hill… albeit I still have a special place in my heart for the global production of “Arbor Day” (1998)… and of course there’s always “The Bell Savers” (1998), my senior honors thesis that juxtaposed “Saved by the Bell” and Shakespeare.
But Rocky has remained a constant, so much so that in 2006, before Stallone revisited his lovable palooka, my old Tar Heel alumni suitemates and I shot a series of reunion shorts that “updated” our “stories.”
Rocky and I are linked through time and space. A few years back I heard about a copyright case that sabotaged a local running club’s effort to run the “Rocky II” montage around Philadelphia (it still exists under a *slightly* different name). They got into trouble because somebody holding the Rocky rights wanted to stage their own “Rocky Run” in the City of Brotherly Love. It’s a nickname I always found a bit… ironic. I grew up in a Philly suburb and have a conflicted relationship with that area for reasons I need not go into here. But I’ve been meaning to return to the city and do this race, to go back and “eat lightning and crap thunder,” as Mickey once told Rock in training.
As a result:
Today, I finally decided it was time to go for it.
Today, I chose to rise up to the challenge.
Today, I went the distance and now I’m back on my feet, registered to run with the Italian Stallion.
Today, I have the eye of the tiger.
Today, I am a champion, and you’re gonna hear me roar!
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
You’re gonna hear my roar.
Note to self — add Survivor AND Katy Perry to my iPod’s running playlist.