Here’s a video of the Christmas decorations around the house.

Perhaps you’ve head some of the backstory of the making of the motion picture Rocky, written and starring Sylvester Stallone. I had heard whiffs of this but I stumbled on a series of videos that interviewed Stallone and when I dug down a little more, found an incredible story of perseverance and determination. The videos are assembled at the bottom of this post if you’re interested in hearing it right from the horse’s mouth.

In the early 70’s Sylvester Stallone wanted to be an actor and was striking out. He was broke, no money and living in New York. Times were so desperate that he hocked his (first) wife’s jewelry. (Something that he advises that you never do. Duh!)

One day he went to the library just to get warm and stumbled on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe and was inspired to start writing.

He moved out to California with his dog and best friend, Butkus, and ends up living in one room where he could open the window and door while sitting on the bed.

California is not going much better and he’s so destitute he couldn’t feed his dog. He went down to the local liquor store tried to sell for him $50. Someone beats him down to $25 and he took it.

Then one night he saw the heavyweight boxing match: Muhammad Ali vs. Chuck Wepner. Wepner was a boxing ‘stumblebum’ brought out to fight the champ, and heavy underdog. But the fight lasted all 15 rounds and he actually knocked Ali down. Stallone was inspired by the story and wrote the whole movie screenplay for Rocky in just a couple of days.

A few weeks after, Stallone was at a casting call for an acting part. He did not get the part, as usual, and as going out the door he mentioned that he had a script that he was working on. He asked if they’d be interested in taking a look. They consented.

Well, after reading the script, they liked what they saw, and they offered him $25,000. So, here’s someone who sold his dog for $25 and is offered this seemingly huge sum. There was one condition Stallone had: he had to play Rocky. There was no way. The producers had Ryan O’Neil, Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, or James Caan in mind to play Rocky.

From there, they sweetened the offer until they reached $375,000. Stallone still refused! Frustrated, their final offer was that he could star in the movie but he would only get $35,000 for the script and less than a million to produce. He took it.

His first step was to go back to liquor store to buy back his dog. He staked it out for 3 straight days and the dog and his new owner finally showed. He explained how much the dog meant to him and offered $100. Nope. $500? $1000? Nope. They settled on $15,000 and a part in the movie. The dog is back and actually appeared in the movie!

So even in 1976 $1M is not allot of money for a full feature film. They worked on site in Philadelphia, with a hand held camera and many members of his family had bit parts in the movie. The movie gets done in less than a month and on budget.

The big coming out for the movie before hitting the theaters was a screening for the Director’s Guild in Hollywood. Stallone had his mother with him and the theater was packed with around 900 people from the film industry.

It was not going well. They did not laugh where laughs should have been, and the fight scenes were not eliciting any response at all. Sly and his mother sat there for a while after everyone filed out and he told her that he could come back home, put his life back together, get a job, and so on.

Stallone guided his mother down the 3 flights of stairs to the lobby and there, the entire audience was there waiting for him and started applauding wildly. Stallone wept.

Rocky went on to receive 9 Oscar nominations – 3 wins including best picture. The movie that was made for less than $1M with hand held cameras brought in over $200M.

Wow!

The Making of Rocky: 1 of 4

The Making of Rocky: 2 of 4

The Making of Rocky: 3 of 4

The Making of Rocky: 4 of 4

It has been nearly 30 consecutive years, on this weekend that I have played, coached and organized volleyball at the Bay State Games (Massachusetts State Olympics). This is the first year in its history that I have not participated and I do miss seeing some of the friends that I’ve made over the years, but it was kind of nice not be be in a gym on a beautiful summer day.

I have quite a few stories from this tournament as a player and a coach, but my favorite is from the perspective as an organizer.

For a few years in the 90′s I served as the tournament director for the event and part of my responsibility was to set up the nets and make sure everything was in place for the weekend’s competition. My contact at MIT was really excited when she told me that they had purchased brand new nets for us. So when I got there Friday evening to set up, they were new allright — new tennis nets! (Of course, they threw away the old nets.) After a mad scramble and a revised set up time on Saturday morning before the sun came up, the games came off without a hitch.

Another is the time I was hit in the face so hard by a spike that I saw stars. The team was celebrating at the facial so exuberantly, that they didn’t see the ball bounce off my face and drop on their side of the net for a point! Too bad I didn’t get to see the whole play!

Yesterday, I took a trip out to Mount Holyoke with college friend, Charlie Whitcomb.  No, not the college, but the nearly 1000 foot hillside that the college is named after!

Mount Holyoke is the western-most peak of the Mount Holyoke Range located in the Connecticut River Valley out in western Massachusetts.  At the top are the remnants of an old hotel first opened in 1800’s. Unfortunately, the hotel structure is need of repairs and you can’t access the porch that goes completely around the hotel and used to give a 360 view of the entire valley.

Below are:

• A panoramic photo looking at Northampton from Mt. Holyoke, spliced together by my brother, Mike.
• A photo of Charlie and I (and some other friends) on the way up the mountain, back when we were dorm-mates at Greenough at UMass. (Photo by Chip Herzog)
• And, a short video of Charlie yesterday.

View from Mt Holyoke looking at Noho (click on image to see full view)

Mark Wilhelm, Al Morel, Charlie Whitcomb Al Morel, Howie Berman on Mt. Holyoke cira: 1976 (Photo by Chip Herzog)

Sometimes in sports (and life) everything can hinge on just one moment. For the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals it was the late hit on Nathan Horton in game three  that knocked him out of the series and propelled the Bruins to win 4 out of the next five games as they rallied to win. It was truly amazing because the team had lost two gut wrenching games to start the series and were able to come back and pretty much crush the Canucks.  It all hinged on that one play–one moment.

Nathan Horton right after the late hit in game 3

I can remember a few other times watching and playing sports where there was a similar experience. OK, this is not nearly for the Stanley Cup, but the first year we had a team at Saint John’s we were able to make the state tournament and were matched up against the top seed, Xaverian High, in the first round.  We were down 2 games to 1 and were 4 points away from elimination, 11-5, and then something miraculous happened. To take that big lead, their big hitter blocked our middle rather savagely — straight down. He then proceeded to posture and dance around the court and gesture to the home crowd, which responded enthusiastically.  We did not appreciate that quite as much, and proceeded to win that game and the deciding 5th game to close it out. That act sparked the team and it all hinged on that one moment. Lesson: Be humble; don’t count your chickens before they hatch; let sleeping dogs lie, and so on…

I am not a huge hockey fan normally. I do follow the local sports here in Boston and I follow hockey more to hear the interviews with the coaches and players. I find them the most thoughtful, humble and toughest athletes out there. Compare and contrast an interview with any hockey player and just about any NBA hoop-god — no contest.

So congrats to the Bruins and for the lesson that life can hinge on that one moment.

Perhaps it’s true that you never truly understand your father until you become a parent yourself. Perhaps.

My relationship with my own, was a little complicated. My first memory of my Dad was: “Just who does this guy think he is?” You see in the early days, my father was out to sea quite a bit and as the oldest of six, I was pretty much the man of the house.  I remember really not liking this guy telling me what to do — whoever he was!

The photo attached in this post was sent to me a few years ago by one of dad’s early Navy buddies. They posed for this photo in New York City on a trip that they made so see Sammy Baugh play football.  (Giants vs Redskins?) Who knew dad even knew what football was?

So on Father’s Day, a story about Dad:

It was the early 70′s and Dad was stationed on a small communications station outside of Washington D.C. as his last duty station before he retired: Cheltenham Naval Communications Station.  From out tour in Asia, he picked up this habit of burning incense, and he used to burn it occasionally in his office on the base. One day, there was a drug briefing on how pot smokers will burn incense to hide the odor of the marijuana being smoked. At that point in the briefing, all heads turned towards him. He never burned incense again.

My nephew, William, and I went down to the Maryland Eastern Shore to visit my friends Dick and Joan Morgan. We’ve stayed in touch these past 40-ish years from the time that we were neighbors on the Cheltenham Naval Station. Here’s a video of Joan showing off some of her favorites quilts that she’s made.

And here’s Dick and Joan as they say goodbye:

Here’s a video of  Telly visiting with his bearded dragon: Rex. A definite family resemblance!

On May 1, 2011, we took a trip to Cape Cod to revisit a couple of spots that we had stayed previously.

Billisgate Ave In Eastham, MA

Is where we spent our honeymoon back in 1986, near First Encounter Beach. OK, it’s true that I left the honeymoon a little early to go back and play the Irish National Volleyball Team in the Shamrock Games!

The Cabins at Route 28 and Old Main Street West Dennis, MA

Red, Mayellen, Kathleen, and Tim spent some vacation time in 1991 with an unwelcome guest: Hurricane Bob.
I had to work that week but when I returned to the Cape the next weekend, there was a huge boat next to the cabin, trees and telephone poles down all over, and many of the homes down on the beach were destroyed. They were without power for 4 days or so.

View Trip to Cape Cod in a larger map

I love this photo of my parents. This is them as chaperons at my junior prom in the PI. One of these days, I’ll stumble on my photo with my girlfriend, Dale, at this event. But for now, it’s MIA.

Today, the boys and I had brunch for Kathleen and inevitably, stories came up of my mother: Joan Marie Kaloustian Morel.

Some of my favorites are:

• The Halloween when we were kids where she kept us all in and we ignored the doorbell and watched TV and ate all the candy.
• Various ‘terrorist’ acts at restaurants.  (I don’t know what it was, but there was something about eating out that caused her to lose her mind.)
• All the strays that she had living at the house over the years — not animals, people.
• The day she came running out on to the baseball field during a game when someone slid in and wiped me out.
• The way she romped on me as my physical therapist after I broke my leg. (More effective than waterboarding.)

So, I am eternally grateful to my mother, whom I miss more than ever and to the most wonderful mother of my children as well.

Here’s the video that my brothers Mike and Bob did for my mother’s funeral service back in 2007.