On March 4, 2002, Big Tymers released the track Still Fly, featuring Cash Money Records co-founder Birdman rapping over an interpolation of the Gilligan’s Island theme song created by producer Mannie Fresh.
A Christian metalcore band formed in Dayton, Ohio in 2005 naming themselves The Devil Wears Prada, after the novel of the same name.
On April 8, 2008, Fearless Records released the compilation album Punk Goes Crunk which included The Devil Wears Prada covering Still Fly.
On July 7, 2025, three minutes into a hike up Hatchet Mountain in Hope, Maine, a horse fly began to circle my head.
20 minutes earlier, I’d dropped my son off at camp. It was a nice day and made a pit stop on the way home to grab a quick hike to the summit of Hatchet Mountain.
To build fitness or build anything requires effort and it requires making yourself uncomfortable.
I felt uncomfortable as I moved up the mountain because I was pushing myself in a way that I enjoy.
I had selected the hike and the pace and the mountain and the trail where I would do it.
I had not selected the fly buzzing around my head.
I observed it. The sound, the light touch as it brushed my ear, then my forehead, then my ear.
It started to occupy all of my attention.
I waved my arm around to get it off my head.
It evaded me.
I waved both arms around. Broad swipes, around my head, back and forth over my head, an egg beater pattern.
The whole time, I kept breathing, I kept seeing, my feet kept moving and I kept advancing forward over rocks and roots up the slope.
My conscious awareness became entirely focused on the fly.
The fly became the experience.
The hike disappeared.
I heard a bird then I heard my breath, then I smelled the wildflowers along the trail and my awareness zoomed out and I was back in my body and on a mountain and in the effort.
The fly continued to circle my head.
I got to the top of the mountain and decided to go down the back side then back up and over to get more vert.
Going down steep terrain on foot is harder on my body than what it takes to go up.
I got to the bottom, turned around and started walking back up.
The fly was an endurance athlete. It went with me.
Then the moment came when it landed in my hair. I smacked my head and it took off and started circling again.
Before I took another step, there was another horse fly buzzing around my head.
Then I had three.
Then four.
Back at the summit, one landed in my hair again and this time I smacked it still.
I thought I won.
Another fly took its place.
There is always another fly.
The wrong view is to think that there won’t be another fly.
There is always another fly.
They’re difficult if we let them be difficult.
They’re just there if we just let them be there.
I stopped paying attention to the flies and walked down the mountain, back in the effort and the environment and my body.
And I’m still fly.