The Zong

Dearest Mr. Ocean,

I would just like to take the opportunity to thank you personally for releasing the single “When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going” back in 1986. I recently re-discovered the song when trying to convince a friend that the most rockingest song you ever recorded was, in fact featured in the movie “The Jewel of the Nile” and not “License to Drive.” (I will go on record and say that, while “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” is a pretty neat song, if not a ballsy pickup line, it can’t hold a candle to the motivational-cubicle-poster bad-assedness of WTGGTTTGG.)

Anyhow, I had the song stuck in my head on Saturday morning, when I woke up with the remnants of a nasty cold which would accompany me throughout the entire distance of 83 miles that I rode on a bicycle that day as part of my training for “America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride.” As you may already know, I’m taking part in a charity event to raise money in the fight against blood cancers, and this weekend’s ride was the major tune-up as our June 3rd jaunt around Lake Tahoe approaches.

So it was with great apprehension and no capacity for nasally breathing that I took to my trusty road bike that morning, and our team braved thousands of feet of climbing in the warming bosom of Livermore, California. It was during the early climb that the inspirational, if not slightly vague, line from the bridge “I’ll climb any mountain/I’ll do anything” crept into my consciousness. Somehow, as my mind reconstructed the finely crafted synth bass line countered by your decidedly euphonious voice as you harmonize “Can I touch you/and do the things that lovers do,” salacious though that line may be, I was transported to a place where no matter how badly my joints hurt, or how long the hill we climbed turned out to be, I had an ace in the hole knowing that I was putting the dream in motion, so to speak.

All I know is, I must have sung that song to myself at least 50 times over the course of the day, reminding myself over and over what The Tough would be doing in my situation. The ride got real windy near the end, and the going most certainly got tough right about then, but then the chorus came around just in time and I’ll tell you what: I went and got rough on the sonofabitch, just like you told me to.

(As a sidebar, did Danny DeVito really play that monster sax solo? My wolf-note cup runneth over!)

Although I definitely finished the ride, I know that I have a long way to go before I will be counted among The Tough. As it is, I think that The Tough are actually the folks that we’re riding for, but that doesn’t stop me from aspiring to get going. I’m certainly still taking donations for the cause, but don’t feel any pressure to contribute monetarily, Mr. Ocean. You’ve already done so much.

- M.G.