Vaya Con Dios Swayze

September was a rough month for celebrity deaths. Everyone wants to talk about Michael Jackson and his three ring circus (some called it a funeral but I didn’t see a resemblance). No, the celebrity death I was most affected by was Patrick Swayze. I have had a simmering affection for the Swayze and his movies for a long while. Watching Red Dawn for the first time in my pre-teen years was just the shot of testosterone I needed to “grow a pair and fight those commies!” With every macho-laced line, Patrick Swayze taught me that, yes, if Cubans and Russians decided to invade my secluded mountain home I could repel the attack. Sure I may end up paying the ultimate price (and repress any sign of grief or weakness like crying), but in the end the reds would come to fear my little band of guerilla warriors with a ferocious mountain predator for a mascot. Wolverines!!

They are remaking Red Dawn and let me tell you it will suck big time. For two reasons: One, no Russians or Cubans. Who’s going to invade us then Hollywood? Canadians and Fijians? Reason two, no Patrick Swayze. There was talk that Patrick Swayze would play the role of Jed and Matt’s (Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen in the original film) father, which would have been sweet. I could just hear the Swayze bellowing from behind the fence at a drive-in theater turned concentration camp “Boys. Avenge me! Avenge me!!” Reason two is the real reason that it will be a terrible movie. No Swayze equals no good.

That takes us to Point Break. Sure everyone gets all silly about it because Keanu delivers lines like “I am an F B I agent man!” But come on, Patrick Swayze as Bodhi—tell me he wasn’t the baddest dude you’d want to skydive without a parachute with. Come on! The Swayze delivers his lines so convincingly in that movie. Like when he’s talking about the crazy surfers on the break, “They’re just out to get radical; they’ll never understand the spiritual side of it.” Good stuff. As a side note I seem to enjoy movies that Gary Busey dies in, Point Break—shot-gunned in the back. Predator 2—sliced in half by the Frisbee from hell. Surviving the Game—blown up in a cabin fire while locked in a room full of severed heads (it was a good one!) But maybe one of my favorite lines from any Patrick Swayze movie “Vaya Con Dios” “Go with God.” I used to say that all the time, but Natalie made me stop.

I could go on about Swayze movies, Road House, The Outsiders, Ghost, Dirty Dancing (not one of my favorites but Julie and Mandy had that movie memorized or was it mesmerized?). I can even forgive the trucker action movie he made with Travis Trit and Meatloaf, Black Dog. Yes the Swayze will be sorely missed.

For my 25th birthday, Taylor and Dustin gave me a Patrick Swayze shirt with a copy of Road House on DVD. The movie is watched often, the shirt was worn to work the day after he died. It was the least I could do for the former Chip and Dale’s dancer turned swing kick action hero/philosopher/surfer/poltergeist/greaser. In his own words: “Let the pain turn into something else and use it.” “Pain don’t hurt.” “You wanna live forever Johnny?” “Wolverines!!” Just like in the closing scenes of Ghost, Patrick Swayze has gone toward the light and left the world just a little less complete. Sad to see him go, but happy to own copies of what he left behind.