If I were to stagger away from my laptop and make my way to the nearest confessional booth I’d have to admit first to the fact that I’ve watched the Swayze vehicle Road House more times than any other film. It is my pick for the greatest bad film ever made and I swear that my remote control breaks when I’m flipping through and Sam Elliott pops up telling me not to eat the big yellow mint in the urinal.
The film has a philosophy all its own, I mean as a kid I soaked in the words, “Pain don’t hurt,” I believed Swayze’s perfectly coiffed hair and chiseled barn house field physique. I’d get up and tell my older brother that it was butt whipping time and he’d proceed to whip my butt and it hurt. It hurt bad actually, but somehow it didn’t and with this I was stumbling on to the heart of Road House zen.
So where am I going with all of this? Well someone who has delved deeper in to the Buddhist philosophy of Dalton put together a spiritual video pamphlet for the unconverted. In one brilliant stroke of editing they have pieced together every face punch of truth from the film and somehow condensed the message in to one kick ass bit of 80’s glory.
“You know, for that line of work I thought you’d be bigger.”
That’s American frontier justice set to the sweet blue sounds of Jeff Healey and the flying fists of the patrons, villains and employees of the Double Deuce.
Time to get back to work reinvigorated by the truth of Road House. As Wade Garret said, “I’ll get all the sleep I need when I’m dead.”
