The weekly Ho-Hum: Norman Mailer, Big Brother, and the berry on Roger Moore’s face

This is the first of a (highly unlikely) series of short takes.

In the news, Norman Mailer is dead at 84, roughly twelve years longer than I plan to be trapped on this insidious yo-yo ride. A formidable wordsmith, he came about as America was weathering the post-WWII literary revolution: Capote, Tom Wolfe, Kerouac, Hunter Thompson, Ken Kesey, Burroughs…all of it leading to the eventual Death Of The Writer As Iconic Wit, re: John Grisham, Nelson DeMille, Stephen King…truly naked, truly dead makers of The Big Buck.

The report over at Yahoo had me pining for the long-dormant mid-century era of outrage:

    “Mailer's personal life was as turbulent as the times. In 1960, at a party at his Brooklyn Heights home, Mailer stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, with a knife. She declined to press charges, and it was not until 1997 that she revealed, in her own book, how close she had come to dying.
    In 1969, Mailer ran for mayor on a ‘left conservative’ platform. He said New York City should become the 51st state, and urged a referendum for ‘black ghetto dwellers’ on whether they should set up their own government.
    Mailer had numerous minor run-ins with the law, usually for being drunk or disorderly, but was also jailed briefly during the Pentagon protests. While directing the film Maidstone in 1968, the self-described ‘old club fighter’ punched actor Lane Smith, breaking his jaw, and bit actor Rip Torn's ear in another scuffle.
    Years later, he championed the work of a convict-writer named Jack Abbott — and was subjected to ridicule and criticism when Abbott, released to a halfway house, promptly stabbed a man to death.”

Goodnight, sweet prince…

A friend sent me this link to ABC news, where we find that “the government has warrantless access to a great deal of Internet traffic should they care to take a peek.” The kind of story that makes people who’ve never read a word of Orwell use the term ‘Orwellian,’ it reminds me that I should watch my Ps & Qs when zapping off missives to my buds, like the recent spate about my epiphany of how to Rip Off the price scanners in self-checkout lines at the store. Not that I’d engage in such unlawful activity myself you understand, but a proper study of these things seems necessary in order to keep the Economy on an Even Keel.

Recently I left a comment at Windmills of My Mind (scroll toward the bottom), in which I babble about James Bond in response to Damian’s birthday salute to Roger Moore. There’s something about Moore that I’ve always found creepy and repulsive…wearing a suit, he looks like a twelve-year-old with rigor mortis being packed off to church by angry Catholics; he feigns a cough into his fist to get attention; his face has the reptilian vertical hills and dales of a frankfurter that’s been on the grill too long; and there’s a berry on the side of his cheek. I never understood why actors with facial berries and birthmarks don’t have them surgically removed, they’re incredibly distracting: Richard Thomas, Robert De Niro…and behind the camera there’s Sidney Lumet whose face is littered with ungodly Tits.

Anyway, here’s what I wrote about 007...which prompted a friend to suggest, “Don't let your talent evaporate in the ether of blogs…please write a book”:

    “While I don't agree that [George] Lazenby was ‘abominable,’ I do believe that On Her Majesty's Secret Service is superior to all the Moore Bond movies rolled into one.
    If you eliminate ‘J.W. Pepper’ from The Man With the Golden Gun, remove ‘Jaws’ from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, and tweak Octopussy, you could find some halfway decent material in them.
    But Moore's films signaled the end of an era. The Connery films invented what would become cliches, the Moore films aped existing genres. As a Bond fan since 1964, I regard Live and Let Die as the worst of the series, a horrible mash-up of early '70s hillbilly and blaxploitation, balled up under a zero budget, and boring to boot. The ‘actress’ who plays his Jamaican contact (was her character named Rosie?) gives an impossibly bad performance. The J.W. Pepper stretch is among the flattest, least involving 45 minutes of celluloid I've ever sat through.
    If Basil Rathbone is the cinema's most identifiable Sherlock Holmes, Jeremy Brett is the closest to Doyle's creation. The same can be applied to 007: Sean Connery is the image, but Timothy Dalton is closest to Fleming. Pierce Brosnan wasn't bad — he was better than Moore, even though The World is Not Enough never recuperates from its second tedious hour.
    The new Bond could prove to be outstanding. The 2005 Casino Royale is easily the best in the series since From Russia with Love.”

Maybe next week: Skim-reading and misunderstanding on the internet…Blogger is a terrible invention…Conservative Millionaires believe me godless…sucking the turkey bane of Thanksgiving…