On The Rocky Franchise

                                            photo courtesy of widescreenworld.blogspot.com


As many of you who follow my Twitter or are my Facebook friends can well attest, my latest mental obsession has been with viewing the Rocky franchise of movies.

I've been annoying my co-workers by calling myself "the Ultimate Male" as Thunderlips did in Rocky III.

I have been yelling "Hey woman!" at my girlfriend as Clubber Lang did in that same film.

It's only a matter of time before I start running laps around an outside track and facing cutaway shots of mysterious substances being shot into my rippling shoulders like Ivan Drago in the fourth installment, or sprinting up a series of steps like Rocky did in every film.

The bigger situation with this though is that I realized that these films actually teach life lessons.

The first installment taught us to never give up, no matter what the odds.

Rocky II preaches the same thing, only this time Rocky gets the big payoff by defeating Apollo Creed.

Rocky III teaches you to stick up for your woman, an archaic idea, but still a value to have for any young man growing up.

Rocky IV taught us all that one fictional boxer could topple the entire Soviet Union.

Rocky V taught us that Tommy Morrison has no business being an actor.

The main idea is that no matter what the obstacle, you can always persevere. Although the filmmakers almost ended that idea by having Tommy Gunn kill Rocky in the famous streetfight in the unwatchable Rocky V.

Luckily for Rocky, the ending was scrapped.

Not as lucky for movie fans, there would be another installment.

Mason "the Line" Dixon?

Really?

Really really?

Hard Work and Dedication: Do Nice Guys Finish Last?

I was always told that if you work hard and really put forth your best effort, things will eventually go your way.

I lose faith in that advice from time to time.

I by no means have had a rough life in terms of struggling. I've never gone hungry, or lacked a roof over my head.

But at times, I have felt that I'm walking alone in life. Which was always ok in the past, because my feeling was that I never needed anyone to succeed.

But now, in my wise and learned state, I realize that one of the keys to life is making connections. It IS all in who you know. Your life, or more importantly, your professional life, is based very heavily on connections.

Which is sort of sad for a lot of people that have genuine drive and talent and miss out on opportunities because of a lack of lucky networking.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm cynical.

But I'm also probably right.

On Love

The word love has the potential to mean many different things to many different people. It can strike fear in a heart, or warm one to the point of overflowing.

When I was five, I thought that love meant sharing your crayons.

When I was twelve, I thought that you were automatically in love with anyone that you dated (whatever "dating" is at age twelve).

When I was fourteen, I thought that love was crushing on a girl who didn't even know that I existed. At that age, buying a girl a chocolate rose and sheepishly asking her "Will you go out with me?" was a life-changing ordeal. She remains to this day the only girl who has ever turned down my request for a date.

But she's a cow now, so I take comfort in that.

When I was seventeen, love meant stealing my friends girlfriend, because she seemed to be a nice girl. Enter my story about her father being a concentration camp survivor, and comparing me to a guard that he feared when he was a little boy. Needless to say, that was not love. But it does make for an interesting story.

When I was nineteen, love really kicked the shot out of me. I was positive that I knew what love was, I knew the ins and outs of the dreaded word.

I knew nothing. I know that now.

Then for many years, I thought that I was really in love. I thought that I was set for life. I thought that I was happy.

I know that that I was being controlled. Programmed. Used as a plaything. The victim of a vindictive and mentally abusive shrew.

Not that I'm bitter of course.

Then fate intervened and said to me "You've paid your dues. You've suffered enough. It's time for you to be happy."

Which was kind of weird, because I had no idea that fate could actually speak, let alone sound like James Earl Jones.

Love is one of those things that works in funny ways. Chances meetings can lead to great things. Random events can lead to eternal happiness. Going out on a limb can be the key to putting a permanent smile on your face.

I can attest to all of these things first-hand. One of my literary idols, Ernest Hemingway once said "There isn't always an explanation for everything." I've always agreed with that statement...so much so in fact that it was my senior quote in the high school yearbook.

I may not be able to explain why I'm in love, but I know for a certainty that I don't ever want that feeling to go away. Nor do I ever plan on allowing it to go away, and I'll do anything that I can to insure that it never does.