For some reason, my youngest little dude, Speed Racer, has become heavily into James Bond. He’s never seen one of the movies, nor has he read any of the original books. But he says he loves the character and wants more. So I gave it to him.

Big mistake.

I ordered Live and Let Die, starring [...]]]> by Richard

For some reason, my youngest little dude, Speed Racer, has become heavily into James Bond. He’s never seen one of the movies, nor has he read any of the original books. But he says he loves the character and wants more. So I gave it to him.

Big mistake.

I ordered Live and Let Die, starring the Roger Moore version of Bond, from Netflix and sat down with Speed Racer, Zippy the Monkey Boy and my wife, known to me as She Who Must Be Nigh Perfect, and watched a James Bond movie that I remember absolutely loving when I was little.

At about 30 minutes into the movie, I remembered that I also used to love eating dog biscuits when I was a little dude. (long story and not something I need to go into here. Especially because it’s pretty embarrassing.)

This movie was terrible. Released in 1973, Bond, as is his wont, tried to tie into the zeitgeist of the late hippie time and early libertine 1970s with success ranging from horribly inappropriate to just plain awful. And it was quite possibly one of the most racist movies I’ve seen in a long, long time.

I won’t comment on the clothing as movies tend to reflect what’s going on in the fashion world around them and, let’s face it, the early 1970s were no fashion nirvana and that’s only looking at the ties they wear. I mean, those things were so wide Lindsey Vonn could have skied on them. (Hey, look! A topical reference! Well, only a couple of weeks out of date so not all that bad.)

No, the problem I had with the movie were the appalling stereotypes filling out the ranks of the secondary characters. First off, there’s the so-dumb-it’s-a-wonder-he-remembers-to-breathe Southern sheriff with a cornpone accent so thick you can barely make out the words between dribbles of tobacco spit.

Then there’s Solitaire, played by Jane Seymour in her first major role. A typically ineffective woman who sticks around so James has someone to rescue and to look at him admiringly. Rosie, played by Gloria Hendry, is supposed to be a secret agent and a double agent, but comes off as a horribly clichéd scardey woman, who can’t help but get freaked out by a dead snake and a hat with a chicken feather on it. Good thing James Bond is there to comfort her.

Finally, there’s the movie’s portrayal of blacks. It’s so appallingly horrible I was cringing most of the way through the movie. On the small Caribbean island, blacks are hootin’ and hollerin’ voodoo followers, all wide eyes and open mouths (I could swear I saw Amos and Andy in there somewhere) and just plain dialogue. In America, black people are depicted as the worst kind of stereotyped pimps, with feathered hats and huge, decked out cars that a real person wouldn’t have been caught dead in. I really felt sorry for the actors who thought they were getting a big break by playing in a James Bond movie.

Seriously, do not rent this movie. If I could give negative numbers I would. As is, I’m giving it 1 dude out of five, if only because I could actually follow the razor-thin plot, not that I wanted to. It also gave me a good incentive to take a nice long shower after, although it didn’t make me feel clean.

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I love browsing quote sites. Or, when I was back in the dead-tree book phase, browsing through books collecting quotes from lots of different people. Well, today, I ran across a great one.

“Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.”

This is by a dude named William Feather, who [...]]]> by Richard

I love browsing quote sites. Or, when I was back in the dead-tree book phase, browsing through books collecting quotes from lots of different people. Well, today, I ran across a great one.

“Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.”

This is by a dude named William Feather, who was a publisher and author out of Ohio starting late in the 19th century. And, really, he’s right, you know.

I mean, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wanted to get out an egg and hurl it at something, or wanted to take out the old sawed-off baseball bat I used to keep under my car seat and just go to town on something, or take off my clothes and run starkers through the airport (yes, I do have anger and clothing issues. Why do you ask?), but I can’t because then I’d see three little dudes doing the exact same thing and that wouldn’t be good.

Especially the running naked through the airport. There are only a few of us who can pull that sort of thing off with panache and style. I’d hate for them to find out they’re not in the tiny minority.

But sometimes. . . Just sometimes. . . When I’m in a place where there are no witnesses and will be no consequences. . . Well, let’s just say it would be setting a bad example and leave it at that.

But, oh, it is fun. So very, very fun.

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Remember way back when Dennis Miller used to be funny? Yeah, I know. Hard to reach back that far. Still, he was at his funniest when he was at his angriest, when he was on a rant.

I’m not that funny, but I’m about to go on a rant. And I do mean to go [...]]]> by Richard

Remember way back when Dennis Miller used to be funny? Yeah, I know. Hard to reach back that far. Still, he was at his funniest when he was at his angriest, when he was on a rant.

I’m not that funny, but I’m about to go on a rant. And I do mean to go off on it.

Back on Valentine’s Day, we got a comment entered in an post that was so old we had to blow the spiderwebs off it so we could actually read what we wrote. Which means, usually, we got spammed by some kind of robot. And not the fun kind. This robot-installed spam was hawking academic papers that you could buy.

Yeah, that’s right. The place, which I will not dignify with a link, is a cheating factory.

There’s an argument that buying papers off the internet isn’t cheating. That those papers only serve as a guideline to the — ha! — students who buy them. A way for them to help focus their thoughts.

Yeah, right. And I’m the Queen of Iceland. Admittedly, I do look good in a nice mauve prom dress and a tiara, but Iceland doesn’t actually have a queen. I think you get my point.

The purpose of an essay is not to punish the students. Well, most of the time. Seriously, it’s so that the professor can make sure the students have actually grasped the point of a section of knowledge and are able to synthesize ideas, resolve contradictions and form coherent opinions about that knowledge. These are all important skills. And buying papers off the internet doesn’t help achieve that goal.

I know I’m speaking as a very old person here. There’s no student who likes writing an essay. I know I didn’t when I was that age. But, now that I’m old, I can appreciate what it’s trying to accomplish. It’s a worthwhile goal. That and it’s fun to watch little dudes suffer like that.

I still remember the two all-nighters in a row I pulled in trying to write a coherent paper about Kurt Vonnegut’s Jailbird. That thing, like most of Vonnegut’s books, is a mass of twisting narrative that can confound the most agile mind. Of which mine was not. Still, I managed to get the paper done on time and turn it in. I got a “B” and counted myself lucky. I later found out I got that high a grade because the professor felt sorry for me when he saw how I looked when I turned it in. I know, how could he tell the difference? Har, har.

Still, even though it’s hard, people need to learn how to write coherent bits of narrative. You will be judged on how well you write. No one’s going to demand that anyone write as well as Christopher Moore or anything, but you have to be able to get your ideas across in print, or pixel as the case may be.

I just do not like these kinds of services. I think they cheat the professor and the student. And that’s not good.

Okay. I’m done. End of rant. Go about your business.

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