Because we share the same name

Patrick Swayze – 1952-2009

My favourite film of his will always be Roadhouse.

Yeah, its all that hardcore fighting action. Though my official answer will be because of its ties to the martial arts. Swayze’s character Dalton practiced some kind of system in order to deliver multiple bruises and broken bones to the bad guys. Or rowdy bar customers.

Though Roadhouse is hardly what I’d call a martial art film. Any film that has topless bar dancing automatically gets booted out of the genre and into a loving place in my heart.

I saw Roadhouse as a child. And I couldn’t believe that the guy kicking major butt and getting the blonde hottie at the end of the day shared the same name as I. It was then I thought that anyone named “Patrick” belonged to a pretty cool club – which, of course, I was a part of by default.

And, I suspect, if you look at his films, you’ll find a hint of bittersweetness and tragedy in his characters – in Roadhouse his character’s friend and mentor (spoiler), in Ghost Swayze’s charaters die, and Red Dawn has nothing but all sorts of tragedy. Let’s not forget as well the diluted form of philosophy – that cool Swayze code of conduct.

Heck, Swayze even knew how to have a little fun.

But it’s sad.

While the world lost another person to pancreatic cancer or an adult woman somewhere lost her teenaged Tiger Beat pinup model, I lost a member in my kick ass We Share the Same Name club.