THIS PAST SATURDAY WAS ONE OF THOSE MARATHON DAYS. I use the term Marathon in the sense of a long ordeal, because there is no way on earth you are ever going to get me to run 26 + miles for anything. In fact, you are not going to get me to run 26+ feet for anything. Let’s consider that issue settled, shall we?
Moving on –
I TURN ON THE TV AND THERE IT IS. I open my Facebook and there it is again. I’m almost afraid to open the garage door lest it is hiding there waiting to spring. Everywhere it is: “Who will be the new James Bond?”
If my sources are reliable, as they most always are – Daniel Craig has that job already. There is a new “Bond Movie” opening momentarily with Craig and he is contracted to do at least one more. That sounds like job security to me.
According to the latest publicity-driven hype that I’ve seen the speculation whirlpool is centered around these four actors to replace Daniel Craig.
Idris Elba, Damian Lewis, Michael Fassbender, and Tom Hiddleston
I am familiar with Idris Elba from the Brit Cop and Robber series, “Luther.” He’d be good as Bond. The other three dudes – No. For one big reason – they all look like a bunch of wimps who would need Idris Elba to help them keep their lunch money from being stolen at school.
I want a Bond who has a “lived-in” face, not someone who looks like he’s shooting the film between modeling assignments for the Sears Catalog. I don’t want a Bond who is constantly worrying if the camera is getting his best side.
Daniel Craig has a face that looks like it has been around the block a few times and it was in a rough neighborhood.
Sean Connery had that face and, like it or not, every actor since then has been held up in comparison to him. Few have come off well in that contest.
I know that this is just my opinion – but I’m right. Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Connery in my opinion – and again, I’m right.
Some people want a suave and sophisticated Bond who looks good in a tuxedo. After that, they don’t care. In that case I suggest they take that fantasy to the nearest tuxedo rental store and leer at the mannequins.
I’m not suggesting that Idris Elba is the only possibility out there to assume the role of 007 when the time comes. I’m sure that there are a hundred decent actors walking around who could do the job superbly without looking like a refugee from the advertising inserts in the Sunday newspaper. But of the four being touted by the Image Machine all over the place today, I would vote for Elba. He is a good looking guy, but when he looks at you, you know that you’ve been looked at. The other three look at you wondering if you’re an agent with a modeling gig for them.
Of course, it comes to mind that there is one man they are overlooking. One man who could do the job of making Bond come alive like no one since Sean Connery. One man whose presence would leap off the screen and slap you in the face if you looked away. One man who has thrilled audiences, chilled audiences, willed audiences to cry, willed them to laugh and willed them to tip their waitresses. One man who could take his Walther PPK and dispatch the bad guys without spilling his cocktail.
(Cue the Music.)
“Make mine Metamucil – shaken, not stirred. The name is Bond. James Bond.”
It could happen.
Boo!
There, now Halloween is officially over – the Pre-Season, if you will. It is time for the professionals to take the field. We are into the Big Time, Serious Holiday Season.
HOLIDAY WEEKENDS USUALLY SUCK. This one, even though it is really an intrinsically minor holiday – Halloween – is another one that tends to slide downhill quickly. However…
This year our Halloween went by on a relatively horizontal glide path. No sudden plunges into nonsense or vituperative cruelty.
After a few years at this, my wife, the lovely and non-chocolate consuming, Dawn, and I have our standard Halloween operating ritual polished and smoothly running.
WELL, I NEVER THOUGHT THEY COULD PULL IT OFF. I was right. Today was the day at St. Arbucks when the baristas were planning to dress up as the customers. It was supposed to be a real laugh riot. It wasn’t.
IT IS PART OF HUMAN NATURE to want to excel, to be the best, at whatever one attempts. That is why we keep records of achievement. Sports keep records of just about every facet of a game, important or not. This mania for record keeping is why there is such a thing as the Guinness Book of World Records.
IMAGINE WHAT A DULL AND BORING WORLD it would be if there were never any accidents. I don’t mean those accidents like plane crashes or ships sinking – no, those kind of accidents we could do without. I’m thinking more in the line of “I’ll be darned. How did that happen?”
THINGS ARE GETTING JUST TOO WEIRD, even for me, and I have a pretty high threshold for weird. After all, I lived in San Francisco for 25 years – the Ground Zero for Weird.
JUST YESTERDAY I SHOWED FIRM RESOLVE to not go out to the new Mega-store that just opened. I said that I would wait a month or so.
I must amend that timeline to read, “I’ll wait five hours or so….”
I JUST FINISHED CHECKING our lottery ticket to see if we had suddenly become the Nouveau Riche while sitting in the corner at St. Arbucks.
We didn’t.
THERE IS AN ODDITY of cartography that draws thousands of people to a dusty, flaming hot and remote spot on the desert land of the Navaho Nation.
I really can’t tell you what state it is in because it is, and it isn’t, in four different states simultaneously.
I JUST LOVE BLOGGING on holidays and today is no exception.
Today is Groundhog Day 2015!! Let the hoopla begin!!
Having grown up in Western Pennsylvania I was taught, early on, that Groundhog Day was a Big Deal. It was right up there with July 4th, Labor Day, and the day that the new car models were unveiled by Detroit. Groundhog Day had implications for the rhythm of daily life, with just a spoonful of local mysticism thrown in. And the town of Punxsutawney was a combination of Stonehenge and Jerusalem – the nexus of everything Groundhoggish.
Down the Hall on Your Left 