ROADHOUSE BLUES

So I am reposting this...i wrote it back in March 08' when I heard that Swayze had fallen ill. He hung on strong for a long time but I am sorry to hear that Patrick Swayze has died at the age of 57. Nothing much will change in my life now that he is gone...Roadhouse is the most aired on television movie of all time (somewhere around 35-40 time a year) and I know that watching it every time I see it on won't change either. I will clear my schedule.



I’m not sure why. I just can’t figure it out. And I’m referring to myself and not the entire worlds fascination with celebrity and please don’t think I have a fascination with celebrity but I am human and I do hold a certain guilty curiosity when the new issue of US Weekly comes to a friends house (never mine…hell no I don’t subscribe). Although the Britney Spears and the Paris Hiltons that haunt the pages of those rags make me sick, make my cynical view on humanity and society grow with every flash washed photo snapped of them, I still, every month find myself scanning the pages looking at them strutting, sluttin’ and whatever else it is they do. Moving on to my point…
When Heath Ledger died a few months ago I found myself for a brief moment left with an empty feeling like something great was coming to an end and something on a large scale. Perhaps bigger then we all can imagine. I never met the man and I don’t know much about him other than I liked his “10 Things I Hate About You” picture (and a few others and I just can’t wait to see him as The Joker) and that I never had it in me to watch more than a few seconds (the worst few) of “Broke Back Mountain”. So why did I feel that empty feeling? Well this rant isn’t about Heath Ledger so I won’t go into it but it has something to do with the unmistakable connection we as humans have with each other no matter how fucked up things are in the state of affairs in the world. No matter how much I fear getting my head chopped off by the terrorists. No matter how much I hate the assholes that live next door to me for staying up all night screaming and yelling like white trash, junkies. Moving on to my point…
This isn’t about celebrities dying or insane fanatics writing eulogies and lighting candles outside these dead stars apartments and fasting out of spite to somehow get even with the higher powers above for taking their precious and only reason for living away from them.
No this is about something bigger than that. This is about something Jim Morrison sang about back in 69’ and there where a ton of things he sang about that weigh big today but for all intents and purposes for the here and now we’ll just hang on one thing.
When I found out a few weeks ago that Bodi…um…Dalton…shit…Patrick Swayze had Pancreatic Cancer I found myself with that same sinking, lonely feeling I got when I heard the news about Heath. Why? I don’t know him. So why do I care? Must be that unwavering human connection we all share right? Well yes but something else (besides compassion). He was Dalton. He was Bodi. He was good times I had when those movies he was in played for the first time in theaters and every time since on the television (and yes I had the disease too…the one that doesn’t let you change the channel to anything else when Roadhouse is on or Point Break for that matter…your kid could be uttering it’s first words and if Dalton was yanking that guys Adam’s apple from his throat you could care less…video tape it honey!!!!!).
These are long gone days. Days when things where fun still. Before things got so uptight. Dare I mention September 11th here? Because that’s where I was when the fun stopped and everyday since it’s just been getting bleaker. Beers just don’t seem as fun and innocent and I know it’s that I’m getting older but still I maintain an eternal young at heart momentum that keeps me young and virile but with a sharp eye on the future and I want it. I want the change. I embrace it but still why does the fun have to stop? Well maybe it doesn’t (for most it does…call it ingrained) but it’s hard to be the only guy on the boat wearing the party hat.
I can see those days…smoke filled bar, neon splashing on dirty walls. Heavy, live blues jamming from a small stage tucked in the corner. The smell is sour and pleasant and filled with all the things we love to hate. A beer bottle goes flying across the room and an all out, bar brawl breaks out. Chicks in bad mini-skirts and fuchsia tube tops slink around bearing their big boobs and some guy walks out of there with a broken leg, nose, rib (or two) and worst of all a badly busted ego which will fester into a nasty case of cold revenge leaving an innocent farmers house burning, a honest working, car dealers dealership pummeled by Bigfoot’s massive monster truck tires and some poor, old, long, grey haired bouncer with a knife stuck in his chest…shit…
It won’t but the point is there was a time where we could dream. When the good ol’ times evoked by a movie or a song fueled long nights hanging out, going out, drinking and not feeling the pressure of high and getting higher gas prices.
And then it gets worse. Last week Jeff Healy dies and another huge chunk of that good ol’ time falls off and disappears forever. For me it’s a hard hit. Again I didn’t know Jeff and really I’m not afraid of dying or the whole mortality thing so it wasn’t a reminder for me that we all die eventually…no it was more. It was sign of things to come. A reminder of just how bad it’s getting out there. Of just how UN-fun it’s becoming. Now I know I’m a dreamer but I keep my feet on the ground for the most part even though I prefer the view from up in the clouds but that doesn’t mean I can’t see this for what it is. I sound like a fanatic myself going on about Roadhouse…some really cheesy, 80’s, action flick and although that may be the case I’m not lighting any candles near Jeff Healy’s gravestone and I’m not praying for Patrick Swayze (only because I don’t pray but my heart goes out to him…that human connection thing again at play here). I just see these dark days ahead and want the old, sunny ones back. And Jeff Healy dying just pounds it harder in stone that they ain’t coming. Patrick Swayze not being immortal like the characters he plays in his movies seem to be, etch it deeper that no matter how hard you try you just can’t relive what’s been lived already and these hard times getting’ harder just beckon me to stop trying.
…the futures uncertain and the end is always near.
Yeah this is the case. Yes The Great Depression v.2 is on the horizon…yes this is true but…what good would it do to throw in the towel now? So I ask you…what would Dalton do? I know what he wouldn’t do. So despite the nastiness around the corner I feel obligated to continue the fight for the champions of fun.
…the futures uncertain and the end is always near.
In these dark days of woe when all the heroes are gone, when it’s all Indians and no chiefs, when a beer at the local dive just ain’t as fun as it was not too long ago and if it kills me trying I will be the only one (if I have to be) standing with a beer in my hand when the last rays of the sun beam down on this wonderful world. If I have to name my first born Dalton to keep the moral up then so be it.
…the futures uncertain and the end is always near.
Until then I will play Jeff Healy loud and proud. I’ll watch Roadhouse even when it’s on USA and cut to shit by the hacks at the censorship boards. And I will always remind the guy sitting next to me that, “were going to the roadhouse, gonna have a real good-time.”