Life Moves Pretty Fast...

Before I begin a bit of a somber obituary for you this Friday (not tailgate related),  I should mention that our new tailgate location is now official.  We've got a month to coordinate, which should be plenty of time to get you where you need to be.  Again, if you are someone that should be "in the know," shoot me an email.

You might be too young or too old to appreciate John Hughes, director and writer of pretty much every good movie in the 80's.  Hughes passed away Thursday, leaving a legacy of films and characters that had a profound effect on pretty much everybody in my age group.  What John Hughes created makes Judd Apatow look like...well, a shitty writer/director.  Sorry, I don't know any shitty writer/directors.  Neither do you.  Maybe Andy Tennant.  He directed Fool's Gold.  He should kill himself.

Who loves IMDB?  Me.

Hughes gave us Clark W. Griswold, who taught me how to road trip.  Clark could always "go another hundred miles" no matter what time of night it was, and he could've slept with Christy Brinkley if that damn water wasn't so cold.  Clark also taught me the importance of family, Christmas lights, and Las Vegas.  BTW, though not a Hughes character, god bless Nick Pappagiorgio.

Hughes gave us Ferris Bueller, who taught me how to get away with stuff, and that skipping school was pretty much the coolest thing ever if you lived near Chicago.  My high school senior year, I realized that we weren't that far from Chicago, and a group of friends and I attempted to retrace the steps of Ferris, Cameron, and Sloan...minus the Ferrari and eating pancreas at Chez Luis.  Ferris also told us that "life moves pretty fast...if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."  Very true.  I've taken many a day off in the name of Ferris...from school, from work, and every Saturday in the fall, from real life.

Hughes gave us the internet.  Or at least he predicted the arrival of it.  Despite Al Gore's claims, Hughes's Weird Science outlined in detail exactly what was to come from the world of connected computing.  Perhaps he saw further into the future, with the creation of touchable holograms.  Someday soon, teens all over America are going to create their own young Kelly LeBrock to usher them into manhood.  Steven Seagal will be first in line.

We learned the perils of travel in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, found the positives of weekend detention in The Breakfast Club, and found humor in Asian names with Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles.

John Hughes may have passed, but his influence will live on for generations to come.