So Long Stallion!

Okay so if you have ever had more then a 10 minute conversation with me you know that I live and die by the Rocky movies (except Rocky V, that just sucked!). And, if you have ever had more then a 10 minute conversation with me about Rocky you know that I have always considered them to be parables of life and have sought to gleen ever bit of meaning out of them (except Rocky V, that just sucked!). So, of course I went to go see the new one and yes - it made me cry about 3 1/2 minutes into it.

Since I have clung so hard to these movies all my life I have come to see the character of Rocky (Not Sly mind you) as a reflection on myself. Yes, it is true that I have always seen myself as the underdog and I still believe that if you live your life with passion and go after you dreams with all that you are, refusing to let anything stop you, that you will truly be successful and inspire others to do the same along the way. As Rocky puts it so elequently in his current chapter "Life is a fight and it is not how hard you hit that matters. The true measure of a man is how many times he will get up after life hits him with all that its got". Anyway, in the first few minutes of the movie you realize that Adrian has pasted a way and that this is going to be the underlying current of the movie. This made me ball because, if you have watched that other movies you can see that above everything else Rocky's greatest victory was his relationship with Adrian and that his drive stemmed from that relationship as well. (ex. in Rocky 2, Rocky wasn't able to give it his all until he had Adrian's blessing). Yeah you know where I am going with this, my relationship with Erica directly paralells this. So, watching Rocky sit at Adrian's grave made me think about what life would be like without Erica and yes the reality is that it would suck worse then Rocky V.

As I continued to watch the movie I realized more and more how this series has always been more then just movies to me and that even through all the cheezy parts (Rocky IV, when Rocky is draped in an American Flag in the middle of Moscow saying "If I can change and you can change then we can all change"), I have adopted the drive to never give up. Now in no way does that mean that I would attempt to enter a boxing ring (I might be impulsive, but I am not punchy), but I truly appriciate the stories that we have been able to experience with Rocky of the past 30 years. He has led us through the end of the 70's when stories still meant something to a movie, then he walked with us through the 80's when no one cared about stories and only wanted blockbuster action and flash. He disappeared through the 90's when people only wanted better special effects and realistic violence and has returned to us in the 00's when the reconstruction of storytelling has emerged. Yeah the fight scene is ridiculous and down right awful, but it follows the plot line and builds to the climatic end when Rocky walks out of the arena to thunderous chanting and gives his final bow.

Thank you Rocky. Thank you for all the lessons taught and for giving me something to smile while encouraging me to keep running. Thank you for the food poisoning I got when I was a kid because I drank raw eggs. Thank you for showing me how to catch a chicken and that it is okay to go to the zoo in the winter. Thank you for teaching me how to bounce a rubber ball while I walked and for showing me that selling out by selling my image is truly being punchy. Thank you for teaching me that true humility is accepting the advice of those who were once you enemy and that even loosing the ones that you love can't hold you back if you don't let it. Thank you for goign out like a champ and not letting Rocky V be the end of your legacy because honestly, it just sucked.

Sincerely,

Eric "The Irish Stallion" Nevius

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