Patrick Swayze passed away yesterday from pancreatic cancer at the age of 57, after battling it strongly for some time. He had told Barbara Walters in an interview sometime ago that he jokingly admitted that he wanted the media to report that he was just “kicking it.”
And that’s the sort of nice-guy-shrug-off-bad-shit-just-digging-it guy that Patrick Swayze always seemed to be.
Now, it’s always a peculiar situation to incessantly root for someone you”ve never met, had contact with or even remotely know personally. With politicians, it’s different, as they come to be represent you and can affect your existence in society.
But, somehow, for some reason, there came to be a great appreciation for Patrick Swayze and his films’ characters (which were all assumed to be Swayze himself) in my old house. It would make more sense to explain that I lived with three other men in their early twenties and our house served as something along the lines of a city’s meeting all for lowlifes and laughers.
Roughly a year ago (weird), my brother (one of my former roommates) and his friend began talking about Swayze’s small town epic Road House. My brother had never seen it and the friend couldn’t figure it out, as if my brother was unqualified to be a man (imagine someone getting into a respectable university without taking the SATs). So he demanded that they watch it at our house.
Severeal other friends of my brother joined in, including another roommate. That night, I came home late and saw a handful of young men staring at the wall (we had a projector against the wall instead of an actual television) as if it were 1927 and they were watching a bootleg copy of The Jazz Singer. Their eyes were glazed in wonderment.
My brother was the only one who took his eyes off the screen. He looked over at me and said, “Have you seen this fucking movie, man? It’s unbelievable!” I shook my head. I had never seen Road House and I could notice my brother’s friend shaking his head in disbelief, as if our parents had raised us all on candy and racism and not vegetables and manners. It seemed like my brother and I were both spectacularly unqualified to be men. Later, I realized that it had also impaired my sister’s ability to be a woman who could appreciate good men. Our parents failed the three of us in some diluted form.
I retired to my bedroom and read, listening to them cheer and clap for whatever was happening on screen. It could’ve been the world series from the sound of it. But the next day, my brother and kept talking about Road House and the other roommate decided to start hosting something called Swayze Night every Thursday.
They decided to start off with a movie that everyone knew: Point Break.
“Ok, Point Break is rad. I’m in,” I said. Patrick Swayze always seemed like a cool guy and he had a filmography exciting enough to appreciate weekly. The two of them invited everyone from their work and there ended up being 15 or so people in our living room, sitting in every piece of furniture we had, dragged everywhere from the garage and the patio.
Watching Point Break, I realized that I had always appreciated Johnny Utah’s poorly written, decently delivered lines. But I never valued Bodhi’s shaggy but serious approach to surf and bank robberies. In the process of the movie, Bodhi became less Bodhi and more Patrick Swayze, and, by the end of the film (storm of the century), it was like we were cheering on Swayze to slay the turbulent ocean.
After Point Break, we began dressing up for the movies every Thursday.
We dressed in flannel for Black Dog (and were nervous for Swayze to help the FBI while trying to save his own life, wife, kid, friend and house).
We dressed in camouflage or as Communists for Red Dawn (and witnessed Swayze’s bravery and strength as a leader in the most impossible of fights).
We dressed as greasers for The Outsiders (and listened to Swayze’s tense but careful wisdom).
We dressed as dancers and camp counselors for Dirty Dancing (and couldn’t help but laugh alongside Swayze for not putting up with anyone’s shit).
We dressed as our own interpretation of ghosts for Ghost (and tried to help Swayze solve his own murder, even though Swayze never needs help).
We even dressed in drag, with men as women and women as men, for To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything… (and couldn’t wait for the more feminine Swayze to still wreck hell on those who abuse their loved ones).
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We even rewatched Road House, just so we could dress up like bouncers and anticipate the glory that is every goddamn minute of that movie.
However, during these movies, we grew to adore the man who was poetry and justified violence in one awesome package. It’s not like he was ever looking to hurt anyone. But we came to agree that, sometimes, “any means necessary” certainly applied, and we cheered him on when we rocked the shit out of life.
And, furthermore, we all just collectively came to…just adore Swayze like he was our favorite uncle. And there grew to be a good number of us (sometimes 30 or so people all squished in our living room) all joking and yelling (at acceptable parts: explosions, sex, good one-liners, you know that stuff that dreams are, like, made of).
I remember when we rewatched Road House, we had to pause the movie so that we could high-five each other for a solid five minutes or so. I mean, the part is/was glorious. Swayze ripped out that goon’s throat (any fucking means necessary, ok?) and dragged him across the river, screaming the villain’s name (Wesley) in such anger, anguish and reasonable uncertainity. He didn’t feel good about it, and you could tell that it hurt him inside, but sometimes, as a hero or legend, there’s no time for a breather. And, even in those considerably outrageous moments, you were sure that Patrick Swayze had so immersed himself in his films that you and Swayze could probably have a conversation about the scene like it had really happened to poor ol’ Swayz (that’s not a typo, that’s his beautiful nickname).
Some film roles were laughable, sure, but they were played with such a good guy smile and shrug that it was hard to even notice the silliness of the film. Instead, you just wanted Swayze’s character (who, again, you mostly just assumed to actually be Patrick Swayze himself) to win. You just wanted him to beat the bad guys, get the girl and help the helpless.
And, everyone, I hope/think, deep down, feels this way, even if they were never at a Swayze Night (as others exist around in these United States). Somehow, and you don’t know when it started exactly, but you just found yourself there for Swayze, no matter the situation’s inanity or oddball “serious” threat.
You start taking the awful circumstances of Swayze’s characters’ life and begin interjecting with realistic problems and handing the movie symbolism it probably never intended. Swayze’s movies begin to represent more than action and comedy, but politics, religion, sexuality, et cetera. And Swayze all brings it about by a tender sincerity.
I mean, in Black Dog, his house was going to be repossessed and he had just gotten out of jail for vehicular manslaughter (because he fell asleep at the wheel, after working too hard and growing tired). But then he agrees to drive a truck again after losing his commercial driver’s license, though he’s wrekced with guilt for the accidental death he was responsible for, and it’s just a load of bathroom fixtures anyway, and he’s just trying to be a solid guy and get through life, you know? Fuck. But then it turns out that the truck is filled with illegal guns. And it was just like, “Fuck, man, why can’t everyone just leave Swayze the fuck alone? He just wants to do this drive to keep a roof over the heads of his wife and kid! Jesus. Just let him live.”
And this sort of whole-hearted cheering for Swayze is what led to Swayze Nights in the first place. Well, actually, it was Road House. And even while watching that movie, it’s just like, “Jesus, the guy just wants everything to be resolved with peace! Why is everyone being such a dick to Swayze? Fuck, I mean, he has a philosophy degree from NYU! He’s just trying to set an example and everyone’s being such a fucking asshole to him.”
Or in The Outsiders, it was “Ok, yeah, he shouldn’t have hit Ponyboy, sure, but Ponyboy’s doesn’t understand what Swayze is in charge of. He has to look out for his younger brothers and gang members. He’s probably old enough to get out of it, but he just wants to help everyone and keep anyone from getting killed. And, damn, he fucking cried when he realized that Ponyboy was alive. Jesus, he has so much on his plate. Fuck, just cut him some slack.”
And so on, and so on, and so on. Yeah, sure, this could be considered goofy or silly, but it seems to feel the most comfortable way to talk about Patrick Swayze, like an underappreciated hero that has endured the most inane and wild situations this world or another world has to offer.
With that giddy but mock-overserious-tone constantly pushing you to believe more, Patrick Swayze’s films became more about Patrick Swayze than the actual films. We would refer to the movies almost like documentaries or remembering when an old friend of ours did something awesome. He was just…something to anticipate and look forward to, and something to find truth in. I mean, even when he was acting, he was still…Swayze. And I don’t account that for his acting, or inability to escape himself into a role. I just think that, any role written for Swayze, ultimately becomes Swayze, as that’s what everyone wants. It’s not that Swayze can’t escape himself. It’s just…well, why the fuck would he? Every fictional character becomes Swayze because Swayze is better than any fictional character. It’s not like he tries and doesn’t succeed. No, Swayze always succeeds at being Swayze.
God, this is hard to explain. Look, the thing is…Swayze is the ultimate character and he always has his inescapable qualities, and that’s what a good character is. Swayze in real life is the best fictional character, drawn up by a collection of gods to tell story after story, blurring the lines of reality and non-reality. And, somewhere in between these magnificent lines, Patrick Swayze became the single greatest Patrick Swayze that Patrick Swayze could be as Patrick Swayze.
In his quiet humility, or his generous heroism, Patrick Swayze saved us regularly from the non-Swayzes of this world, bravely anticipating the coming doom that is known and made available to the real world and the fictional worlds created in order for Patrick Swayze to explain the positive messages he had always held dear by way of hypothetical situations. He came here a boy, became the manliest of men, turned into an actor, and, somehow, evolved into a beloved legend of dreamlike proportions and has now left as something that can’t be put into words.
R.I.P. Patrick Swayze
KICKED OPEN THE DOOR TO THIS WORLD: August 18, 1952
KICKED OPEN THE DOOR TO ANOTHER WORLD: September 14, 2009
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