The year was 2008.
I was entering my final semester of junior high with reckless abandon. I cut class, dodged assignments, and played hooky with conviction. In a last-ditch effort to save my ass from flunking, my guidance counselor urged me to find a role model—someone who could inspire direction in my aimless existence.
At fourteen, the task proved daunting. How the hell was a directionless, teenage lowlife like myself going to find a role model? My peers gravitated towards sports icons, but I wasn’t exactly the jockish type. Perhaps if I found someone who looked like me, I would have an easier time connecting with their ideology.
There was only one problem: no one looked like me. I was an ugly sack of shit in junior high who wore a mullet with bangs, though not necessarily by choice. The prospect of short hair terrified me due to my large forehead and unkempt eyebrows.
I had reached an impasse. Naturally, I did what any fourteen-year-old male virgin would do at a time of crisis: I turned on Spike TV.
For the uninitiated, Spike TV was one of the sleaziest cable networks of the early 2000s. Reagan-era action films were huge programming staples, airing most weekday afternoons. That day, I caught the last sixty seconds of the 1989 masterpiece Road House, starring a mulleted Patrick Swayze.
A skinny-dipping make-out scene unfolded in murky pond water between Swayze and his buxom blonde co-star. Nearby, their blind musician friend sat under a shady tree, serenading the lovers while they sucked face. Credits soon followed.
These sixty seconds of filmmaking weren’t much to write home about, but one thing was clear: Swayze had a mullet, which I found relatable.
That weekend, I made it my mission to rent Road House and watch the film in its entirety. The absurd premise was reason enough to be entranced. Swayze played Dalton, the best bouncer in the world who also happened to have a philosophy degree from NYU. Within the 114-minute runtime, I watched in awe as Swayze dispensed rhetorical wisdom to his peers, beat the shit out of disruptive bar patrons, received staples for a knife wound without anesthesia, had sex with a woman against the stone masonry of a rustic fireplace, and ripped an enemy’s throat out with his bare hands. The film played its ridiculous premise with absolute sincerity, and it was better for it. The secret ingredient was a committed Swayze, who elevated schlocky material with effortless charm.
After watching Road House approximately ten times that weekend, I became crazy for Swayze. A lifelong commitment to exercise blossomed shortly thereafter, inspired by a naive quest to emulate his physique. I also emulated his work ethic in school, pouring every ounce of effort into my assignments. As ridiculous as it sounds, I had discovered a life-changing role model in Patrick Swayze. I once dreamt about meeting him in person and talking his ear off about all things Road House. Sadly, that dream would never materialize.
Swayze passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2009. The news hit me hard, like a roundhouse kick to the face. I remember purchasing his memoir, The Time of My Life, the week he died. I still own the book.
I love Road House. Hell, I wrote a thirty-page paper on Dalton’s ‘I want you to be nice’ speech for my rhetoric class in college, drawing comparisons to Cicero and Quintilian, two of Rome’s most influential rhetoricians. I don’t know where I’d be without this film. And I don’t know where I’d be without Swayze.
Thank you, Patrick. Rest easy.
