John Candy

So I was walking home from work and this beat-up Chevy Cutlass pulled up to a house about 200 feet from where I was and backfired. It was alarming. But it was pretty awesome. Which made me remember Uncle Buck, who had a car that always backfired. And that got me thinking about how fucking awesome John Candy was in the late 80's. Dude was in Home Alone, The Rescuers Down Under AND Uncle Buck in a SINGLE YEAR.

Take a step back and think about what you did this last year. Here's what I did: Based on statistics I crapped around 1,200 times, I know I lost my wallet twice, I definitely fell down the stairs once, and can sure as hell remember cutting my face due to sneezing while shaving 4 times ([all in the fall; I have a drafty bathroom and my sneezes come without warning, don't judge).

In the same amount of time that I took a lot of dumps and involuntarily hurt myself, John Candy made movie history. He got to work with Macaulay Culkin TWICE when he was still awesome (I know it's not fair to expect child stars to never grow up, but seriously, someone should have stunted his growth or thrown him in some kind of cryo-chamber or something. They'd be up to Home Alone 38 by now and I'd own every single one)

He also got to work with Tia, the admittedly bitchy shitty daughter in Uncle Buck, but I had (and still kind of have?) a huge crush on her. (I just googled "Uncle Buck Tia" to find a picture of Tia, which led me to find her name, Jean Louisa Kelly, which I googled and then found this:

CELEBRITYBAREFEET.COM????  WHAT THE HELL?)

Anyway... it's a real shame he died so young (and also totally nuts that it happened 16 years ago... I remember watching Cool Runnings (on VHS) with my brother the day he died. It was snowing. We were sad). Thinking about all of the incredible movies he was in, it's scary to think of what else he would have done if he was still around.

But you know what? He made some incredible movies and as trite as it sounds, his legacy lives on forever. He was a part of some of the greatest movies ever made (Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Little Shop of Horrors, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Summer Rental [note to self: where the hell did you put your Blues Brothers DVD?]). He makes me smile whenever I watch one of his movies and that is pretty freaking cool... and something we can all kinda aspire to in a weird way (I know he had problems but still. His life's work was dedicated to making people laugh and that's both difficult and admirable).

John Candy, you are awesome. Job well done.