Sylvester Stallone and His Friends' Films Podcast

Stallone The Steps Chapter 7

Ryan and Jared continue their listening party through Sylvester Stallone’s memoir *The Steps*, picking up at Chapter 7, My Buddies, the Pigeons.

They are still in step one. The chapter opens with Stallone alone in a cold room that winter, eating chicken and feeding the pigeons on the fire escape, the same window-sill habit that shows up in Rocky. He writes about learning to love himself after affection felt like a mirage, the rigid discipline of open auditions, and the sting of being told his face would not sell. Mid-chapter Bill Conti music swells under the “dreams versus concrete vision” passage. The long stretch is Moondog, the blind street poet in Viking gear on 52nd Street who turns out to be a real composer with an apartment, a girlfriend, and albums. Ryan and Jared note how much of the biography is now on Wikipedia. The chapter ends on New Year’s Eve watching the ball drop as the 1970s begin, still with no first film credit named. The close is the timeline debate and Jared’s plug for The Hyperspace Podcasting in the 25th Century.

0:00 Chapter 7 starts, My Buddies, the Pigeons
0:38 Cold room, chicken, pigeons on the fire escape
2:09 No love coming from anywhere
4:29 Softcore audition note, open calls
9:47 Not commercial enough for TV ads
11:45 Dreams versus concrete vision, Bill Conti
15:40 Moondog on 52nd Street
21:15 Wikipedia check on Moondog
25:12 New Year’s Eve, the 1970s begin
28:56 Chapter 8 tease, timeline questions

CREDITS
Audiobook: Sylvester Stallone, The Steps, Chapter 7 (My Buddies, the Pigeons)
Hosts: Ryan and Jared

Stallone Steps memoir chapter 6

Ryan and Jared listen to chapter 6 of Sylvester Stallone’s memoir The Steps, the Fight or Flight section that moves from the deli to a high-school dance and back again.

0:00 Welcome, Jared returns, chapter 6 Fight or Flight
5:00 Name tag change, first mention of Frank
9:44 Trash guy confrontation, walks away
14:05 1961 Father Judge dance, Fishtown
18:48 Gets punched, feels like a coward, goes back
22:23 Cheap shot, priest beaten, chain-link fence
25:15 Shot in the triceps
29:44 Back to the deli, hammer and knife
32:00 Arrested, the Tombs
50:15 Released, apron in the trash

CREDITS
Book: The Steps by Sylvester Stallone (chapter 6, Fight or Flight)
Hosts: Ryan and Jared

Ryan and Adrian continue the live listen of Sylvester Stallone’s The Steps memoir, still on Step One, through the deli shift, an audition, and the winter coat he had to save for.

Ryan and Adrian listen to Sylvester Stallone’s The Steps memoir, still on step one, in the chapter where he cleans lion cages and bombs a Juilliard audition.

Ryan and Doug stay cold on *The Steps*, chapter three of step one. First two agencies never get past the secretaries. No photo, no resume. Pharmacy booth, fifty cents, four poses, nose against the lens. Third office slides the strip back: professional shots only.

Last name on the list. Walk-up, German accent, no secretary. He gives Mike Stallone. Then the birth-certificate fight: mother wanted Tyrone, after Tyrone Power; father blew up and put Sylvester on the form, Americanized from the grandfather, firstborn Italian custom. School years as Sylvester the Cat, Tweety, fists, suspensions. Mike ever since, except at home.

That agent offers a 10 p.m. Brooklyn audition and does not come upstairs. Apartment 3D, a man called Ed, robe, sake, Death of a Salesman*, a noise in the closet. Sly leaves. Drink maybe laced. Cigarette, elevated train, proud he did not do something stupid. Bill Conti under the exit. Not *The Party at Kitty and Stud’s — Morton Lewis never shows. End of the chapter. No spoilers in chat.

Fuse Gino and Sir Robert were in. Nine hours of audiobook, live and unedited, maybe into Christmas. Ryan’s Rocky and Rambo feeds; Doug is back when the clocks line up.

Ryan and Doug keep the cold listen of Sylvester Stallone reading *The Steps*. Step one is New York. Off the bus at Port Authority, heat, horns, no bed, no one he knows. Walk to 46th and 9th, Hell’s Kitchen, where it started.

Born July 6, 1946. Mother in denial until labor on a bus. Forceps, crushed nerve, left side of the face, the slur. Cold-water flat, plywood on the tub, $15 rent, steel wool in the baseboards, pink mice under the sink. Father the barber who wanted to sing. Mother the cigarette girl at Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe who later claimed she was the star. She never divorced truck-driver Tommy; a four-year-old son she denied. Furniture broken. Then three years in Queens with Mama Hansen, visits once a month. Frank is not in the room yet — Ryan and Doug flag the half-brother from their Frank coverage and wait for the split.

Back to 1969. Bench at Port Authority, Woodstock headline, $80, Bowery flophouses, two nights by the garbage cans, then the Sutton at $21.80 a week. Room smaller than a modern cell. Shared bathroom, shower with the clothes on, Yellow Pages open to talent agents. Bill Conti still under the steps. Ryan’s Conti interview is in the comments if you ask. Frank Stallone coverage lives on the other show.

Ryan and Doug go in cold on the first listen of Sylvester Stallone reading The Steps (William Morrow / Harper Audio). Ryan has been skipping the press tour so the book stays a surprise. Doug takes the inaugural episode after years on the Rocky and Rambo runs.

Dedication: Jennifer, Sophia, Sistine, Scarlet, then Sage and Serge. Chat flags Sasha as a character in I Play Rocky (Sir Robert). Sly did not write that film.

Then step zero. Pyrenees, 1969, 100 pesetas, Madame Pilar, an egg in a handkerchief. Double lifeline, change around 25, three marriage lines, fortune by 1976, drama not singing, avoid comedy. University of Miami, a few credits short. Draft-dodge line left as a claim; hearing-loss story (amp at a concert) not in the pages yet. Costa Brava at dusk, a fisherman’s mussels, driftwood, time undefeated, then New York. Piano under it is Bill Conti.

Live, pauses for comment, no spoilers in chat. Thunderlips is in. Rocky 50th is this year; Star Wars is next. Ryan’s Rocky and Rambo feeds; Doug is back when the clocks line up.

The Steps, Sylvester Stallone, memoir, audiobook, Madame Pilar, 1969, Bill Conti, Sasha, I Play Rocky, Rocky 50th

Ryan welcomes Variety writer Matthew Chernov (How the West Was Cast) to It’s a Long Road for a scene-by-scene look at Rambo III’s botched rescue.

They talk Variety lists, why Matthew ranks Rambo III second in the franchise, then the failed raid: Trautman still captive, the injured boy, the sewer swim, the RPG that buys time, handing over Co’s necklace, and Stallone’s classic self-surgery with gunpowder. Matthew also walks through the 2021 Julian’s Auctions Stallone sale — First Blood knife, poncho, bow, Rocky script pages — and plugs How the West Was Cast plus his Variety pieces, including Tulsa King costume design.

Ryan also hosts One More Round, the Rocky series podcast.

00:00 – Intro and Matthew’s Variety work  
08:40 – Why he ranks Rambo III #2  
12:50 – Bond and western podcasts / How the West Was Cast  
41:00 – Sewer escape, the boy, and the failed mission  
43:30 – Sending the boy northwest / Co’s necklace  
45:30 – Wound-cauterizing sequence and the body cast  
48:30 – How the episode felt as a first-time video guest  
49:50 – Plugs: How the West Was Cast, matthewchernov.com, Tulsa King  
51:20 – Julian’s Auctions Stallone memorabilia  
56:10 – Wrap-up

Ryan welcomes Dominick Tartamella (Movie Thoughts podcast, Genuine Reels impersonations) to It’s a Long Road for another scene-by-scene pass through Rambo III.

They cover Dominick’s Stallone fandom from his dad’s VHS tapes, why Rambo III is his least favorite of the series, and then the aftermath of the village attack: the leader’s “where is the honor?” speech, Rambo declaring “it is now” his war, the boy who wants to fight, and the famous “he would do it for me / he calls me Johnny” walk-off. Along the way: hairline debates, possible lip work, a visible costume flub, and plenty of Rocky asides.

Find Dominick’s solo reviews on Movie Thoughts. Ryan also hosts One More Round, the Rocky series podcast.

00:00 – Intro and Dominick’s Movie Thoughts / Genuine Reels  
06:00 – Stallone and Rambo fandom origin  
12:30 – Overall take on Rambo III  
16:00+ – Hair, lips, and peak physical Stallone  
49:40 – Hair plugs debate  
51:40 – Leader scene after the attack / “where is the honor?”  
56:00 – “It is now” / “you’re a good friend”  
59:30 – The boy wants to fight  
1:00:30 – “He would do it for me” walk-off  
1:01:30 – Wrap-up and plugs

Ryan welcomes Sicco (Hugging a Cactus / the Mel Gibson podcast, the Arnold podcast, Last of the Action Heroes Network) for his first appearance on It’s a Long Road, the Rambo series podcast.

They talk overall Rambo fandom — why First Blood is Stallone’s best acting work — then settle into Rambo III: the well-shot Russian prison sequence with Trautman, the village hospital, Soviet toy mines, Yuri the defector’s rock-and-stick briefing, and the council that decides whether to help free Trautman. Sicco adds real-world timing on the Soviet-Afghan war and why the movie already felt slightly out of date in 1988.

Also plugged: Game Changers (starting with G.I. Jane), Bird on a Wire, Nowhere to Run, Spies Like Us, Red Dawn, and the new Arnold season.

00:00 – Intro and Sicco’s shows (Mel Gibson, Arnold, Game Changers)  
04:40 – Overall Rambo fandom and First Blood as acting  
07:00 – How Rambo III felt in 1988 vs now  
11:20 – Real-world Soviet-Afghan conflict timing  
16:50 – Back at the Russian base / Trautman in the cell  
18:00 – Cinematography and theatrical look  
43:40 – Village hospital, prosthetic limbs, toy mines  
45:40 – Yuri the defector  
47:20 – Council meeting and the miniature base briefing  
51:20 – “I’ll go alone” vs asking for two men  
53:00 – Holy warriors speech and why Stallone made the movie  
57:30 – Wrap-up and network plugs