STAYCATION WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with JOHN HUGHES! The sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, buds, wasteoids, dweebies and dickheads, they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude. The writer/director behind Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Weird Science, National Lampoon's Vacation movies, Home Alone, Planes, Trains & Automobiles and many more died Aug 6, 2009.  Hughes masterfully married music to movies, so I pay video tribute to him today, starting (of course) with "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds from The Breakfast Club (the drumming o­n this song is impeccable), and Karla DeVito's "We Are Not Alone," along with the Ramones playing "Blitzkrieg Bop" (from National Lampoon's Vacation), David Bowie's "Young Americans" and The Vapors o­ne-hit wonder, "Turning Japanese" and Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" (all from Sixteen Candles, which opens to a clip of veteran WLS DJs Larry Lujack and Tommy Edwards), Van Halen's cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman" and General Public's "Tenderness" (both from Weird Science), the Psychedelic Furs re-recorded title track from Pretty In Pink, which also featured Jon Cryer lip-synching to Otis Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness" (that last clip is a blistering live take from the 1967 Stax tour -- and excellent, btw), The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" (a Hughes perennial; here, the Dream Academy cover from FBDO), and OMD's "If You Leave," plus two more from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "Danke Schoen" and "Twist and Shout" (which was shot o­n Dearborn and Randolph Streets in Chicago, with International Polka Queen Vlasta atop the float, though Cameron and Sloane were in front of the Post Office down the street), plus Yello's unforgettable-no-matter-how-you-try "Oh, Yeah." Videos are scarce for Some Kind of Wonderful, but I found Flesh for Lulu's "I Go Crazy" and the March Violets' take on the Stones' "Miss Amanda Jones."  BONUS: Molly Ringwald's post-MeToo re-evaluation of the films that made her career.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED has Mitski, Irreversible Entanglements, Sally Anne Morgan, and more.

HAND HABITS plays KEXP.

LOW CUT CONNIE plays WFUV.

BUDDY & JULIE MILLER return with "Don't Make Her Cry," co-written with Bob Dylan.

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO covers Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It with Mine.”

THE REPLACEMENTS: Tim is getting the super-deluxe treatment.

MARK MOTHERSBAUGH remembers PAUL REUBENS.

WHEN RUSH met the Manic Street Preachers.

LIZZO is called arrogant, self-centered and unkind by a director.

THE STUDIOS & WRITERS are getting together to discuss resuming negotiations.

MORE A-LISTERS are contributing to the SAG strike fund.

LEAH REMINI is filing a lawsuit against Scientology and David Miscavige. 

OPPENHEIMER: Why you may have trouble with the dialogue.

BARBIE is postponed in the Middle East.

WONDER WOMAN 3 is back on with Gal Gadot working with James Gunn.

BLUE BEETLE: Cronenberg for Kids?

JESSICA CHASTAIN on her first Emmy nomination, taking charge of her career, and the strike.

CATS & DOGS, living together...

A DOGGO, left to his own devices.

BUNNY said no phone.