I just want to take a quick moment to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.
I’m thankful for the folks who read, the folks who reach out, and even the quiet ones who never say a word but still stop by. If you fall into that last group, don’t be a stranger—look me up, say hello.
Life is tough. We’re all in this together. Life is short, too, so let’s soak up the sun where we can, eat a little more than we should, and grab every bit of life that’s offered while we’re here.
Give thanks for what you have, and try not to envy what someone else has—you never know, they might not even like it themselves.
It is that time again.. Turkeys, the trimmings.. the parades. And Al Roker.
While time takes advantage of our good nature and nostalgia can be harmful, let’s just be nostalgic and go back in time. Some may consider 1986 the best of times…others the worst. But for He-Man Masters of the Universe fans, it the ultimate of times..
Americans are expected to set a new record for Thanksgiving travel, with nearly 80 million to hit the roads, catch flights and board cruises over the holiday period, travel group AAA said on Monday.
About 1.7 million more people will travel this year from Tuesday, Nov. 26 to Monday, Dec. 2, compared to a similar period in 2023.
Let the misery begin a number of storms possible. Will weather cooperate? And will we get home in time for Thanksgiving? 2024?
Just about every year, we collectively watch the movie PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES. Steve Martin and John Candy star in a raucous and zany film about two men just trying to get home for Thanksgiving.
As we travel with them on their silly hijinks, we are introduced to strange and bizarre characters, we peer through the veil of some distinctly grim and entirely dirty hotels. And, in the end, Steve Martin’s character Neal Page is able to get home to his family just in time to enjoy a beautifully prepared dinner, and a perfectly groomed, family running down the stairs to greet him.
But what about John Candy’s role, Del Griffith.
That situation is a bit different.
Throughout the movie, Del Griffith provides the comic relief necessary to make this a timeless hit comedy. What is deeper and darker, more sinister and grim, is the person we really meet in Del by the end.
You are left looking at a man at his darkest hour. Someone who is alone around Thanksgiving and Christmas season. Someone who has lost his wife and is forced to spend the holidays only with himself, just himself. No one else, and no family.
This is a tale all too familiar to many people around this time of year. There’s something very magical and beautiful in the air when businesses and homes begin putting up Christmas decor. Lights and music greet us at every store entrance, friends and family stop by for traditional festivities.
But so often, we are forever changed as friends and families die away.
During the film PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES, it takes a bit of time for Neal Page to figure out the obvious. Until a few scenes in, we are led to believe that Del is also trying to get home in time for Thanksgiving. It’s not until the final scene that movie viewers realize he has no one to go home to, and no reason to even go home.
Del is a drifter. We are not permitted to learn much about why his wife died or when, we just know she is gone. And with her went a story–Del’s contribution to her story died with her.
That is grim. It feels overwhelming and it’s nature and beyond depressing and it’s reality. That is why some lively scenes can make you forget the heartache:
So as the nationwide rampage of Del and Neal end, it ends with a heartfelt moment of love when Page arrives back home to smell of turkey scent roasting in the house.
What happens to Del Griffith after this movie ends. Sure, Neal invited Del back to stay for dinner. As the song plays the film out, we see Del, standing there at the front door, humble and meek, accepting of this new friendship.
But let’s play it out. Does Del continue to be Neal’s friend? Does he move in? We highly doubt it. As a matter fact, we are led to believe that Neal is somewhat of a pretentious person of wealth that is beyond reproach. Del is the exact opposite, selling shower curtain rings for money. He does not inhabit the wealthy yuppieism of the Reagan years that Neal emits.
So it’s hard to believe a friendship will continue once Thanksgiving dinner plates get cleaned up. But even if it did, Del will enter the Christmas season alone and void of nurture and love.
So many people this holiday season will be in that same place. That is what makes this movie magical, not just a film that is filled with the most vibrantly spectacular comedic scenes of all time, but also a movie that showcases and dramatizes just how deeply lonely some people can be when that cold and dark air begins to approach around Thanksgiving..
Mall Cop inhabits the same fate. Paul Blart is seemingly fun, adventurous.. but in the end even he was consumed by a desire to be loved in a moment of holiday fraud.
The tragedy of PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES is that, seven years after the movie was released, on March 4, 1994, Del Griffith himself, John Candy suffered a heart attack in his sleep and died at age 43.. Just imagine how many other roles we could have seen him in were it not for this tragically early demise.
PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES lives to this day in infamy each holiday season. It has become a staple for many families to continue watching this movie around Thanksgiving. Lately each year it seems to get even more popular.
As with all John Hughes movies, there is a message lurking deep beneath the laughter and frivolity of his films.
Give thanks for what you have, but remember those who don’t have what you do, or what they once did.
Happy Thanksgiving to all. And if you see Del Griffith at your local bus station, do him a favor and invite him for dinner. He needs that human connection..
It is too early to stick a fork in it, but things sure seemed quiet this year.
Despite previous years’ fights and retail mayhem, we went silent in 2021.. yes the pandemic. We know. But even with that said, a semblance of a return to “normal” tried to occur before the omicron outbreak started in South Africa.. and even with that, these numbers:
Retail watchers say that the “consumers,” as they refer to the huddled massive of bargain basement shoppers, are starting to browse earlier.. online retail is going to soon far outweigh the brick and mortar..
Stores being closed had an impact as well..
On Thanksgiving day, visits to brick-and-mortar stores cratered 90.4% from 2019 levels, Sensormatic found. Retailers including Target, Walmart and Best Buy opted to keep their doors closed to customers on the holiday. Target has said it will be a permanent shift.
One of the best and most famous horror artistry came thanks to Stephen Gammell and his work in the SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK series. Some of the most haunting drawings and imagery inspired an entire generation to try to do what he did.
Well, little do so many know, Gammell actually added his talent to Thanksgiving, as well!
Introduce yourself to Thanksgiving Poems by Myra Livingston.. Illustrated by Stephen Gammell!
The book was a collection of 16 poems and songs from various storytellers’ including musical excerpts from the Osage and Navajo nations. The book is only 32-pages and the poems discuss trees, turkeys, families, and food; giving thanks, what happens when families congregate during thanksgiving, and the history of thanksgiving ..
And some amazing haunting artwork by Gammell!
Things like these:
A native American with a baby.. The interesting way that the baby is black and white while the colors begin to ensemble as the pictures edges closer to the right hand side.. And the baby’s stare: Just that haunting glare..
This poem was called Joy of an Immigrant .. but the imagery below it is lonely and sad.. Almost perhaps as lonely as one may be when they first come to America, not knowing what daunting pressures they will face when trying to capture the rewards of a new nation..
Gobbedly-gobble! How they laughed! And how those frightening turkeys looked like they were about to turn into zombies!
Pilgrims meeting the natives never looked so frightening. It looks more like a ghostly appearance of both sides for the first Thanksgiving rather than the real event.
This art is great! It looks like a freakish family where dad is intoxicated and mom just nervously grins as she brings in more “cheer,” and the kids just want to leave the scene. The best part of this drawing is that it could have easily appeared in SCARY STORIES just as easy as it did in this Thanksgiving poetry book.
Come Ye Thankful People Come .. Come into the blinding wilderness during a snowstorm. A lonely scene where the chill is deep in the air.. What a haunting image!!
Will you ever want to eat turkey again after you see this horrific cartoon version of one dressed in a suit and ugly giant tie? I think not!
And saving the best for last:
No, this is NOT the picture for THE BIG TOE, though it could certainly be mistaken for that. This is just a quaint little happy brother and sister picking pumpkins on a dull and dreary day. With that empty rocking chair outside. This imagery reflects a lonely and sad scene.. The two children depicted are devoid of emotions, instead they are drawn to just stare deep in your soul..
Somehow this year steamrolled right on through us as human beings. We’re on in this Mandela Affected bizarre Stranger Things-ish world together .. Let’s start acting like it..
YOUTUBE cracking down on videos that feature child exploitation.. “In the last week we terminated over 50 channels and have removed thousands of videos under these guidelines,” YouTube said in a statement. All of the videos featured below were still up as of Tuesday evening…
Toy Freaks, for example, was a channel in which a single father uploaded clips in which he scared his daughters while bathing, or dressed them up as infants. The channel had 8 million subscribers before YouTube took it down last week.
An interstellar interloper is dashing through our solar system MORE: “This thing is an oddball,” said Karen Meech from the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, leader of an international team studying ‘Oumuamua. “What we found was a rapidly rotating object, at least the size of a football field, that changed in brightness quite dramatically. This change in brightness hints that ‘Oumuamua could be more than 10 times longer than it is wide — something which has never been seen in our own solar system.”..
I recently asked people, what are you thankful for. Like, really really thankful for. Minus out family. Minus out friends.. the typical answers include the norm.. I wanted the ‘rest of the story’.. the deeper and more covert secrets that lurk behind the exterior face.
The responses I received were interesting..
One person wrote to me, “I am thankful for serving my country.” Another simply said, “I am thankful to be sober and off drugs for 11 months.”
We are a people filled with varied personalities and multiple personalities sometimes as well. One man’s molehill is another man’s mountain. It’s all perspective..
I respect anyone’s opinion. Especially when they are honest about it, when they are true..
To be able to publicly comment about thankfulness of being drug free takes bravery and confidence. And frankly, thankfulness.
I personally am going to violate my own rule of commentary by saying this first: I am thankful for my friends and family. I am thankful to be a father and see my son grow and change daily. I am thankful for laughter. I am thankful to have a car that gets me to work. I am thankful to have the freedom to type away and have a website such as this..
I am thankful for fine coffee in the morning. Vegetables. I love pasta with garlic and olive oil. I am thankful that I have a phone that can listen to Clyde Lewis as I fall asleep at night and podcasts so I can listen to Jim Ross and Last Podcast on the Left.
I am thankful I saw the second season of STRANGER THINGS.
I am thankful for each laugh, tear, and emotion that my body feels.
But enough about me..
Back to you. Back to your internal secrets, deep down.. the eye ready to blink as you face forward with arms wide open: What are YOU really thankful for?
HUNGER GAMES MOCKINGJAY continued to dominate the Thanksgiving box office this weekend followed by family friend THE GOOD DINOSAURS.. the MARTIAN stayed strong..
MORE..
$62 mil for MOCKINGJAY and Pixar’s DINOSAUR had a 79% makeup of families during the weekend to $28 mil in America and $82 mil globally..
The big story of the weekend is not the individual amounts of each movie, but the overall theme: The box office was 12% up compared to the 2014 Thanksgiving weekend..
Store shopping was down. Perhaps black Friday bargains don’t need attention when Cyber Monday is around the corner. The same people shopping years previous are picking time with family in theaters.. Which is an amazingly great concept to me.
There have been some years previous when Thanksgiving and Christmas days ended at the movies. That may be an up and coming tradition so as long as major production companies continue to give quality reasons to make it happen.
