Patrick Swayze is dead.

The Czar is of three minds on this man. On the one hand, he will be forever tormented by the day Swayze walked into his roadhouse. He called himself Dalton, then, and was nice. Until it was time not to be nice. Long will we remember how he saved the establishment a hundred dollars in skimmed tips by causing several hundred thousand dollars in damages. But on the plus side, he took care of Brad Wesley back in the days when the state police lacked the authority to arrest sociopathic robber barons that held the entire town of Jasper in a blatantly illegal grip. Fortunately, the lack of law enforcement allowed Swayze to single-handedly murder Wesley and a dozen of his goons and completely get away with it. But who knew that dealing dime bags of coke out of a lightly attended roadhouse was how Wesley made his millions.

On the other hand, the Czar contrasts that useful Swayze with the weird, disturbing Swayze that few remember—the one who got hired as the dance instructor up at Kellermans in the Catskills. He was trouble. And sure enough Baby Houseman fell for him, despite the fact she was about 14 and he was in his 30s. When she went to one of his parties, she witnessed dancing and music that was, to her Jewish princess background, utterly alien, depraved, decadent, and…delightful. Blamed for an abortion and a picked pocket he didn’t commit, Swayze was forced into the real world. Although they put Baby in a corner, he returns to Kellermans to sweep the teenager off her feet and into oblivion.

But the Swayze the Czar knew best was the heroic Patrick Swayze, the one everyone forgot. The high school football star of sunny Calumet, Colorado. Remember? When the Soviets invaded, and Swayze led his own brother, some of the chess club, and Baby Houseman into the mountains to live like wolverines? And how a guy who could throw a pretty decent spiral wound up saving the entire country—hell, the entire world—from the might Soviet-Cuban military juggernaut by shooting up a couple of jeeps and setting fire to one building? The Czar has not forgotten we owe Patrick Swayze our entire freedom.

But now he is gone, all too soon. Shot by a mugger, he is survived by his fianceé Molly Jensen and mourned by his suspiciously attentive friend Carl Bruner. In lieu of flowers, please send condolence messages to Oda Mae Brown.

Ditto, buddy: nobody puts Swayze in a corner.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.