Some from France

Stained glass - Honfleur.

Dodge the tourists.

In Bordeaux.

Angry horses.

Going places.

Friends in Honfleur.

Fountain - Bordeaux.

Dog in a basket.

Bordeaux.

Rolling

I was online with a buddy of mine a couple of weeks ago, and I was telling him that everyone we knew back in high school has kids. I'd received one of those invitations from a reunion site, and on a whim I went on there and dug around.

From the jocks to the nerds to the snobs to the saints, practically all of the old faces are married and have kids. I also noticed an interesting phenomenon: you don't have to look at a woman's bio to see if she's married with children. If she's got short hair, she's married. If she's got long hair, she's not. Works about 9 out of ten times. For men, it's weight: a few extra pounds means he's recently tied the knot, and a spare tire indicates a fifth anniversary.

Anyway, I was telling my buddy this news, and I thought he would come back with some deep thoughts on life. Something like, Well, we all get older, or, Yeah, I've been thinking of settling down myself.

What I got instead was: Losers! Ha!

I busted a gut at that one. God knows what I'll do if he ever ties the knot. Me and my buddy are diametrically opposed when it comes to politics, eating habits, and how to pick up women (he's Mr. Nice Guy; I, to your probable surprise, am not), but we've more or less used each other as validation for not giving a damn about backyards and potato salad.

Seeing all of these long-gone faces with kids gave me an interesting thought. Back in high school, I'm pretty sure we all wanted to get laid, but it rarely happened. Now, everybody's getting laid and they can't wait to post photos of the evidence all over the internet. It only took sex ten years to go from being the aw-shucks-red-in-the-face-sweaty-palms act it was, to a humdrum event you can now discuss over dinner.

That really is what separates the married people from the single people (besides the empty pizza boxes, cheap scotch, and strangers' underwear found under the cushions). Married people can talk about screwing all the time, while single people are supposed to be discreet. Which is to say, don't tell your friend about the bimbo you shacked up with at the last office party; wait till his wife is out of the room so you can tell it in detail.

Now before the ladies write in telling me how uncouth I'm being, give me a break. I learned more about sex by eavesdropping on girls in the cafeteria than I ever did in a classroom. Tuesday morning at Starbucks might as well be an adult Sex Ed class. One look at the cover of Cosmo will tell you how much women think about sex, and according to the women I know (married and single), the ladies can really go into detail when in a locker room mood.

Sex and age. Depending on what you mean by that, it can be an interesting discussion, or an unsettling image. Let's go with the first one.

I feel sorry for the women that hear it from their parents and grannies all the time, that the clock is ticking and they need to have kids. Personally, I regard it as rude. Whose life is it, anyway? It ain't yours, ma, or aunt, or grandma. You told your daughters to go out into the world, be who they wanted to be, dream big dreams, and get a fulfilling career. And now you want her to get on her back and do the one thing that you told her not to do when she was growing up? Not only is it rude, it's hypocritical.

Leave your daughters alone. Telling someone to have free will, and then blackmailing them for it, isn't love and it isn't guidance. It certainly isn't cute over Christmas dinners. It's disrespectful. Further, it's pathetic, wanting to live your life through that of your offspring. I find it odd, and a little frightening, when women tell me that their parents and grandparents still do this sort of thing. Not one woman is telling me about a parent saying that they want them to find love. It's all about the kids. Well, if it was all about that, why didn't they let daughter stay out all night with Johnny when she was 17?

Oh, I forgot: because then maybe you, dear grandmother, might have had to help out with the child. It seems that overbearing parents don't talk about sex with 17-year-olds because at that age, sex is about pleasure. They do talk about it with 30-year-olds because by then it's merely procreation.

Since when? Last time I checked, a 30-year-old woman liked sex as much, if not more, than she did when she was younger. Is she now supposed to feel bad about the act itself because it isn't leading to mobiles and Pampers on special?

Still, for those that go down that road, motherhood seems to be quite enjoyable. Flipping through the bios of old friends and enemies, I saw a lot of, "I love being a mom." I bet that's true. The pictures show smiling faces, on mother and child both. And that's great. But you've got to admit, it's kind of creepy seeing a woman with a child and knowing that not too long ago, you threw her down a snowbank. Back then it was funny. Doing the same thing to the same person years later, nobody would laugh and you'd probably get arrested.

My friend and I don't have any kind of a pact against marriage and parenthood. I read once that George Clooney and his modern Rat Pack had something like that going on, where they swore to just hang out, party, and be men's men for the rest of their lives. That smacks of phoniness and protesting too much, and besides, being a man's man is a hell of a lot easier with George Clooney's bankroll. The financial costs of marriage might be high, but being single isn't exactly a road to early retirement, either. If you've been on a first date lately, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Fact is, me and my friend have been busy. I don't see him very often, but that's the whole point: we've been moving around a lot. The rolling stone gathers no moss deal is a very true expression. Anyone who sees that as a shallow point of view doesn't get it: you're not necessarily rolling to avoid things, you're rolling because you're busy doing something. A by-product of that is not being in one place long enough to meet someone special and think, "You know, I'd be all right with building a swing set and arguing about where to put it."

So yes, my friend is wrong, though I know he was just kidding around. The married with kids folk are not losers. They went their road and gathered some moss. If the evidence is correct, they're glad they did. As a live and let live kind of person (as long as I get an opinion on it, naturally), I am fine with that.

But for the women out there that aren't ready yet, and who are listening to a clock ticking in the form of some bigshot family member's pacemaker, my advice is this: keep rolling.

You've got company.

Happiness Murmur

Aristotle thought it was the goal of life. George Harrison believed it was a warm gun. The framers of the US Constitution thought it was something worth pursuing, and the large woman driving too slow in the fast lane with the bumper sticker thinks it is yelling, "Bingo!"

I'm referring to happiness. It's an elusive and very elastic word, and as the examples above show, anyone can use it any way that they want. When I first read Aristotle's deal on happiness, I more or less got the point. It was only after I'd read a bunch of other guys analyzing Aristotle's thesis that I became confused.

I Googled Aristotle this morning just to brush up, and I was confronted by a bunch of know-it-all's telling me that this is what Aristotle meant, not that, and "of course Aristotle didn't mean what we mean today," and on and on and on. Which I think is a load. When I read his discussion on happiness years ago, I thought it was a little windy, but I got the gist: people want to be happy. Happiness is not a state of being, it is an activity of the soul. There was some more stuff in there about not disgracing your ancestors, but by that point I had achieved true happiness: I'd found something else to do besides read more Aristotle.

Not that Aristotle's message isn't uplifting. Nietzsche's version of life's main pursuit (power), reads a lot more depressing than Aristotle's does. Problem is, Nietzsche's sounds more true, because happiness is such a subjective idea.

When I say, "happy," you could envision all kinds of things. Maybe it's the wife and kids. The new job. A nice car. A long vacation with a supermodel. Whatever, they are all symbols of a state of being (at the time you drive the car, sleep with the model, so forth) you could call "happiness." But the dictator has his choice words, too: torture, death, mayhem. Brutal power. And it makes him "happy."

The more I look at it, the more I think that life's pursuit is a combination of the two, with a little more of the pie belonging on power's side. It is possible to have power without happiness, but not the other way around. Though Orwell said that a boot in the face (forever) is the ultimate symbol of power, one could disagree with that. Power doesn't always have to be something evil or distasteful. Power is simply power. Power over one's life, or what we might call freedom.

It depends which person's life we're talking about, and what they perceive as happiness. Hitler's quest for happiness as an activity of the soul couldn't be further from Mother Teresa's, but at one time or another I bet they were both truly happy.

Bordeaux

I've found a new favorite city in Europe.

It surprised me. Travelling to a lot of places makes you somewhat jaded and hard to impress. You get blase about statues, waterfalls, street mimes, "authentic" this, and "genuine" that.

But Bordeaux impressed me. It's a beautiful place, where every building looks as old as Louis XIV. Most ancient cities have a bogus 'old town' which is surrounded by skyscrapers. Bordeaux is all old town. The streets are wide and the monuments aren't covered in graffiti. It's very busy and noisy one minute, and dead-quiet the moment you turn a corner.

Bordeaux has an atmosphere of urban adventure to it. You can wander the streets for hours, some of them only a few yards long. There was one street, Rue Ste. Catherine, that was maybe twenty feet long and seemed to serve no other purpose than to provide space for a sign that says Rue Ste. Catherine.

The shopping district would have North American ladies in stitches. I must have walked the main shopping avenue for fifteen minutes before stopping for a coffee. I still couldn't see the end of it, and I didn't much care to. Fifteen minutes of walking had taught me that Bordeaux has everything a man or woman could ask for, especially if you're a fan of shoes. If you're a Converse All-Star fanatic, then you're in luck: I haven't seen that many pairs of All-Stars in the windows since I was in fifth grade. I didn't even know they made them anymore.

Smokes are cheaper in Bordeaux even after taking the Euro into account, and the beer is reasonable. Unless you order Guinness. I don't know what the Irish did to piss off the people of Bordeaux, but a pint of Guinness will run you 8 Euros, while a pint of Stella is half that. I bought one anyway, just for the hell of it, because I was in an Irish bar. It turned out the lady behind the bar was from England. She'd come to France years ago, married a Frenchman, and spent the rest of her life living in various French-speaking countries. She said she liked Bordeaux, but then again, she pretty much liked them all.

That's a good attitude, and I can agree with that. I've liked most places for one reason or another. What I dig about Bordeaux is that it is beautiful, and it takes care of itself. Venice, no matter what the postcards say, is more or less a craphole. Graffiti all over the place, people chucking cigarette wrappers into canals which smell like a sewer. I heard once that Venice is sinking, and I couldn't help but be grateful. It needs a bath.

In Bordeaux I saw not less than three street sweepers in the space of five hours. They're a lot smaller than the ones they use in the big American cities, but they get the job done. They drive down the streets, walkways, pathways, and they gobble up garbage and sweep up filth in no time. Moments later, they're gone, and so is the day's trash. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is. Just as people generally act the way they dress, I firmly believe that a city's people will reflect their environment, and vice versa. It's an endless cycle. Let a city go to hell, and the people will, too.

And that's what makes a place: the people. The first time I stayed in France some years ago, I was struck by how much I liked the French. Previous experience with French culture involved reading about Napoleon, learning about the Luftwaffe pounding French cities to rubble, and dealing with assholes from Quebec.

I stayed in St. Nazaire and Pornichet for a few months, and I loved the place. Loved the people. I often tell this story of what happened to me one day while in St. Nazaire:

I had to go to the pharmacy to pick up some drugs. I had the address, but I didn't know where the place was, and France is low-low on taxis. I wandered into a bar and show the bartender the address. He started pointing and jabbering, but he knew I couldn't understand him.

Just then a guy at the bar gets up and motions me to follow him. I thought he was going to take me into the street for more jabbering and pointing. Instead, he walks to his car and points to the passenger seat. I demure, saying no, you don't have to do that. He keeps pointing, shrugging his shoulders, not understanding why I won't get in. So I get in.

He looks at the address on the paper and drives me there. My French then was awful, and we don't say a word the whole time. We arrive at the pharmacy and I get out of the car, waving good-bye and saying "Merci," about five times. I go inside and it takes the lady about ten minutes to put the prescription together. I walk outside, and there the guy is, still sitting there. He waves.

I get in, saying "Merci," another five times. He just shrugs. We get back to the bar. I go inside and buy the guy a beer. He looks happy as hell. The bartender raises his eyebrows to ask if we found the place. I hold up my little baggy of drugs, and the bartender nods in satisfaction.

That's France.

I've met some damned kind people in France. The hype about France being an anti-American (and they all think I'm American when I talk) stronghold is merely that: hype. It stems from the people in Paris whom the French don't even like, and from past nonsensical French politicians. The French people, to my mind, are some of the most generous and gregarious people you will ever meet.

I don't think that merely from that one episode. I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have never felt shunned because I can't speak French or because they think I'm a Yankee. In Quebec City, you get treated like a jerkoff if you can't speak French. In France, they either try to use some English, or they use a lot of sign language. Either way, they don't make you feel like you're in Hull. I was out on the town in Quebec City one night with a French dude, and I asked him why people around the coat check were pointing and laughing at me. He said, "Because you're speaking English." Just like that. And in a nice gesture he said, "Losers."

Anyway, Bordeaux. I went to a couple of clubs there and struck up some pigeon-French conversations with the locals. Like all people, they want to know what you think of their city. And I was being quite honest when I told them that it was a great city and that they should be proud of it. My French has improved, but it doesn't really matter. The people in Bordeaux switch to bad English to compete with my bad French, and generally you can get the point across. And the point is the same the world over: people are people. Nevermind the politicians and the movie stars and the terrorists and the maniacs. The vast majority of people are just people. They want to be happy, and they want you to be happy, too.

It was nice to come back. Years ago, I had written down somewhere that I would have no problem living in France if it came down to it. Bordeaux reminded me why.

Some Spain and Portugal

Here's a few pics from Spain and Portugal. Click to enlarge. I'll try to type up a few articles in the coming days, but things have been busy.


Friends on the beach.

Triumph. Barcelona, Spain.

Busker Rehearsing.

Balance.

On the rocks - Spain.

Starting line.

Trampled Under Foot. Statue, Malaga.

Waiting. Lisbon, Portugal.

What's The Matter - La Coruna, Spain.

Crab. La Coruna, Spain.

Laura on the beach. Cadiz, Spain.

Laura - B&W.

Church. Spain.

Woman with dog. Cadiz, Spain.

The Med

A few shots from the last couple of weeks in the Mediterranean. Click to enlarge.

Big beers. I love the look on Tony's face (at right) in this photo.

Leaning.

Jodi and Laura, hanging out.

A few buddies in Sorrento.

Scooter walk.

St. Tropez.

Unplugged

From One News (New Zealand):

Mercury Energy sent a technician to Folole Muliaga's home to disconnect the power as the family was behind on their power bill.

Folole, 44, was suffering from a cardio-respiratory complaint and needed oxygen from a breathing support machine to survive.

Family spokesman Brendan Sheehan says the technician who arrived at the house to disconnect the power supply spoke to Folole and she told him she needed electricity to operate the machinery. Sheehan says the technician said he was just doing his job, turned the power off and left.

The woman died a few hours after the power was disconnected.

That has got to go down as one of the biggest "oops" moments in electrical technician history. For its part, Mercury Energy says that no one told the tech that the woman needed electricity to stay alive. The real story will probably never be known, as it is a he said/she said affair, and the she in this case is dead.

How much did the woman owe Mercury Energy? $170.

There's two ways we can look at a story like this. The first one that everyone seems to be taking is to say that big business and big government are a bunch of jerks that don't care about their customers/citizens. Killing a woman that owes you $170 dollars when you make millions a year in profit is not exactly looking out for anyone's best interests. Except your own.

But there's another way to look at this case. If you're on an oxygen machine that requires electricity to keep you alive, do you pay the bill on time, or not? And if some guy comes over and unplugs the juice, do you just sit there and die? What about picking up the phone and telling someone, anyone, that you need to borrow their power outlet or you are going to bite the dust in a few short hours?

People need to stand up for themselves. This case will have all kinds of trials and recriminations, all of them saying that the power company was evil and at fault. Who knows, maybe they were. But the woman would still be alive today if she had taken things into her own hands. First by paying the bill, second by getting help when things turned soured.

Don't sit. Stand up. Act.

A Few Pics

A fountain in Genoa's town center.

These three dogs spent the evening cruising around Sorrento's town square. They either own the place, or think they do.

Me trying for a James Dean in Monte Carlo.

These dudes woke up Sorrento one morning by roaring through.

This Italian woman stopped for a smoke and a chat in Sorrento.

Rosie O'Donnell - Artist

I was never a big fan of The View. Four rich ladies sitting around telling unemployed women what to think about life is not my idea of good television, but what do I know?

Rosie. Ah, Rosie. The big, round, mound of sound finally decided to pack it in. She was due to resign from The View in a few weeks, but after her latest tiff with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, she punched the clock early. Or as Rosie wrote on her blog: "When painting there is a point u must step away from the canvas as the work is done."

True. Or as I like to put it, "When done taking dump, there is point u must flush."

Rosie O'Donnell comparing herself to an artist is a pretty good laugh. I'm glad she was talking about art of the paint variety, and not art a la William Faulkner. Here's another great piece of art from the woman that said Christianity is as much of threat to the world as militant Islam:

"On the view u have seen my last hasselbeck spat 2 day was it no more -- its done."

Rosie O'Donnell is a great American story. Only in America can you get rich and famous by ceaselessly bashing your own country, and doing it with a poor vocabulary and bad sentence structure to boot. Rosie's art is loudmouth stupidity, verbal or written, and she deserves some credit for that. Her conceit is evident in every wild charge she makes, and in the fact that she doesn't bother to use a spell check. Through her website, you can see how much thought she puts into her arguments and how much respect she has for her fans. She has paved the way for a whole new artform: graffiti journalism.

Here's a transcript from The View's March 26th broadcast, as recorded by World Net Daily, regarding the British sailors taken hostage in Iran:

BARBARA WALTERS: It could be a decision-making time. It's a very difficult situation. It's at the United Nations. It's being examined now. Should there be sanctions? Militarily, we certainly don't seem to be in the position to do something militarily. But it is a decision-making time.

O'DONNELL: Yes, but it's very interesting too that, you know, these guys, they went into the water by mistake right at a time when British and American, you know, they're two, they're pretty much our biggest ally and we're considering whether or not we should go into war with Iran.

BEHAR: But the U.N. was about to sanction them, also have an embargo against Iran. And the, and the timing [unintelligible] so they distracted the whole world with this.

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: Right and they may be about to expel the inspectors right now, too, which could be considered [unintelligible]

O'DONNELL: Right or it could be just the Gulf of Tonkin, which you should all Google.

O'Donnell's lousy theory about the British hostages being a ruse by the US government to start a war with Iran turned out - surprise - not to be true. But where did she get off saying this stuff in the first place? If The View is a popular show and reaches millions of homes, it owes its audience some integrity. O'Donnell had not one shred of evidence for comparing Vietnam's Gulf of Tonkin to the Iran hostages. But that doesn't stop someone like O'Donnell. She spews, she takes a commercial, and she spews again. There's no follow-up, no correction, only an audience of seals that applauds and waits for the next pile of verbal vomit to hit the floor.

Another interesting bit from O'Donnell: ""655,000 Iraqi civilians have died. Who are the terrorists?"

Let me guess, Rosie. The United States? This was the statement that apparently led to the confrontation where Rosie called Hasselbeck a coward, and Hasselbeck looked like she wanted to jump across the table. Hasselbeck was asking Rosie to clarify the statement, wanting to put her on the record as to whether or not Rosie was calling US armed forces "terrorists." Rosie ran away from the question by calling Hasselbeck a chicken.

Can you imagine being called a coward by Rosie O'Donnell? This is a person who champions gay rights and same-sex marriage, but does everything in her power to make the US look like the bad guys in the Middle East. News for Rosie: if you lived in Iran and told people you were gay and proud, they would kill you. That simple. They hang people all the time for the outrage of being a homosexual. So who's the coward? Hasselbeck for calling your bluff, or you, for toeing the politically correct line even when it means standing up for people that, by their own admission, want you and your girlfriend dead?

The numbers, by the way, don't point in O'Donnell's favor. In 2006 alone, over 16 000 Iraqi civilians were killed by terrorists, while a little over two hundred were killed in circumstances involving US forces.

O'Donnell shouldn't have a problem with terrorists, anyway. While berating Hasselbeck (who must have the patience of a saint) in a 2006 broadcast, O'Donnell told her, "Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers."

I would love to comment on that with something smart, but all I can come up with is, "What an idiot."

And that's Rosie O'Donnell. An idiot. And yet a genius. She has done extraordinarily well for herself. She's gotten rich off her schtick, and there's no reason to think that she won't continue to be successful.

I doubt she'd be able to pull it off in primetime. That's when the educated, working people are watching. It's also when the professional news people are ready to hit her with a tough question or two, not liking a daytime upstart who thinks she can say whatever she wants on their show.

Unlike the graffiti artists of the subway, O'Donnell hides in broad daylight. With what's-your-favorite-color Babs Walters running The View, she had nothing to fear, until Hasselbeck decided to pick a real fight. That's when O'Donnell did what she does best. Spew and run.

Unfortunately, all the way to the bank.

Photo: Retna

Café Marseille

I was having a beer in Marseilles with a friend of mine. It took us a while to a find a place which served stout, the French not being known for their love of beer. While sitting on the patio enjoying a Guinness, my buddy remarked that the women in France all look like women.

It took me a second to get his drift, but then I nodded in agreement. Both of us are originally from Canada (he blathers on about having English parents and a UK passport, but he's about as English as a beaver), and we're used to seeing North American women. When travelling to Europe, you're struck by just how different the women are.

I know, I know, of late I have become the anti-woman bore, or many of you seem to think so, judging by the letters that I get. I'm not anti-women at all, and really can't explain why I've been thinking about the fairer sex so much. Maybe I've just got women on the brain. It would be nice if they were on something else, but the brain will have to do, and I guess you're going to have to put up with it.

In any event, my friend is correct. French women dress like women, walk like women, and act like women. In short, they know they are women. They don't act, swear, and dress like men, knowing full well that true power lies in their their femininity.

They carry themselves in what an American would consider a snobbish manner, but they aren't snobs at all. They're just women. They know the men are watching, and want the men to watch, but God help you if you get caught up in their trappings. Behind those tight pants, flowing skirts, and Armani sunglasses, you will find a calculating creature that will love you to death if she is pleased, or stab you to death with her eyes if, to borrow from Queen Vicky, she is not amused.

I've had girlfriends tell me that they hate European women. They dislike the way they flaunt their sex, using it to their advantage, using it as a weapon. As if this were something unnatural?

Women north of the Rio Grande are a terrible disappointment when it comes to the mystery and the allure of woman. Yes, the French chick at the bar in the black turtleneck smoking the long cigarette might be a snob. But there is something sexy as hell about women that can stand alone at a bar and not once - not once - look around the room. Sheer confidence. Like a cat. Utterly disinterested in what you have to say or who you are...or might she be?

This as opposed to, say, the sexy allure of a chick from Kamloops wearing droopy denims when she shouts, "Canada kicks ass. Whoooo!" and then punches you in the arm harder than a lumberjack.

Don't get me wrong. Partying with Canadian and American women is fun as hell at the nightclub, but they just look wrong at the cafe. It's not their fault. That's North American culture. Sometimes you see women trying to ape it (NY, LA, Toronto), but they can't bring it off with the same panache. You can't fake being who you are for very long before smart people see right through you. LA women might try to act aloof, but that's the whole point: they're acting. French women are aloof because that is what they were the day they were born.

Getting by that is the adventure, the rest, gravy.

Monte Carlo Midnight

Monte Carlo is one of those places you like visiting if you have a lot of cash. If you don't have a lot of cash, you enjoy visiting it until you look at your bar bill the next day and realize that the kids can't go to college.

I went for a night on the town with a few buddies of mine. It had been years since the place saw my shadow, and back then I was only there during the day to take photographs and wonder what it would be like to be rich and famous. Years have passed and I am still not rich, nor am I famous, but I am a much wiser man: in a place as expensive as Monte Carlo, you need to take at least five friends with you wherever you go. That way, you buy a round of drinks and scream when you get the bill, but you only have to do it about once an hour. When you're on your own, you have a minor heart attack with every beer that lands in front of you.

The beer test is the way single guys sum up how expensive a place is. Some people go online and research a country's GDP. Women take the exchange rate into account, or what a leather bag costs at the mall. Single guys ask for a Budweiser and then say something like, "Well, that's about what it is at home," or "Holy shit, this place is dirt cheap, let's open a bar," or, "Jesus Christ, who ordered the tequila at 12 dollars an ounce?"

The beers in Monte Carlo cost 8 Euro for a draft, and ten or more for a premium bottle. At today's exchange rate, that's about 10 dollars for a lousy draft of suds, about triple what you'd pay if you're from some Northern Quebec craphole, or four bucks more than LA. Hard liquor is pricier still, with a martini running 10 to 12 Euro depending what you put in it. As a general rule of thumb, drinking with men is cheaper than drinking with women. Women order such new fangled, odd sounding, and awful tasting chick drinks that the bartenders up the price simply out of spite. When it takes ten minutes for them to prepare the thing, I don't blame them.

The beer test is the ultimate indicator of how expensive a city is, because you can be sure that a city charging 1o dollars for a draft beer is not going to sell you a house for under a couple of million. To make a two million dollar house sound reasonable, just tell yourself that it's only worth two hundred thousand beers. Besides, what do you expect in a place like Monte Carlo, where Grace Kelly was a Princess and their Grand Prix has the Mediterranean for a backdrop?

Monte Carlo is not for regular folk, though you wouldn't know it to look at the locals. I didn't see any rich people, I only saw people that had a lot of cash. There's a difference. The people in Monte Carlo are so used to having money that they don't give a shit about it. I met an Australian expat living in Monte Carlo, and while he bought us a round of shots, he told us that when he first moved here, he spent 1.5 million Euro on his new apartment. He said it like a man telling me about the new handsaw he bought at Home Hardware.

The locals in Monte Carlo don't dress the part. They have a ton of bread, but they don't spend it on clothing. They wear jeans, shorts, flip-flops. The Aussie expat told me that anyone who dresses too well in Monte Carlo sticks out as a snob. When everyone around you can buy and sell everyone else, what is the point of trying to go them one better in the shoe store?

It occurred to me that this meant me and my buddies could fit in. All we had to do is pretend to have a lot of cash because we already looked like locals. A friend of mine suggested we go hunting for sugar mommas to take care of us for life, but were disappointed to find that most of the chicks in one jazz club were themselves looking for sugar daddies. The rich stay at the bar and drink their faces off, while the wanna-be's like us are on the dance floor, entertaining them with our antics.

And we're more than happy to oblige, too, so long as they don't look down their noses too much when we blanche at the sight of a hundred Euro check for four beers and a couple of whisky chasers. But the people in Monaco's bars don't look down their noses at anybody, at least as far as I could tell. Nobody was rude, not even the bartenders. That is a miracle in itself. Even the doorman said good evening, if you can believe it.

The locals I met at one club were telling. It was a bar located on the last turn of the Grand Prix, the home stretch. Nearby, massive yachts bobbed in the harbor. In the bar, a rock band was playing, and I was struck again at the absolute dominance of American music culture around the world. From Tianjin to Monte Carlo to Singapore, you don't have to go very far before hearing Elvis Presley and Springsteen.

The bar was packed with locals on a Tuesday night, and not one of them was an asshole. No smugness, no attitude. With a lot of real money comes a lot of real confidence. The people that live in Monte Carlo have nothing to prove to anyone, because they've already proven it. They know they're rich, but it doesn't mean much in their scheme of things. When money has ceased to matter, you have to find other things that do. I don't know what they do in their downtime, but I'd like to find out.

Would I go back to Monte Carlo? Bet your ass I would. Just lend me a few bucks, won't you?

Euro Tripping

I was thinking this morning that it has been at least 2 or 3 years since I've walked the streets of Europe. That's too long. I don't have a massive love for all things European, but I know that Europe is an ever-changing place, so you have to catch it while you can. Demographic shift, politics, and even the currency are turning Europe into, well, Europe.

I don't think I'm alone in thinking of France and Germany as merely European provinces nowadays. That's good and bad. Good, because it means Germany might not invade France for a third time. Bad, because European culture is becoming purely European, and not French, German, Polish, Italian, so forth.

Europe is not the Europe of yesterday. To be a good European, you must merely hate the United States, and not wish to work more than 35 hours a week. Sad.

The last time I went to geographical Europe was in August of last year. I went to England. I'm in agreement with my English buddies that the UK is part of the European continent, but isn't "European." Still, I'm starting to wonder about that, too. The more I see and hear about Europe, I can't tell the difference between many of the countries and their peoples' views. England is now falling into that same 'European' category. That's a shame, because I love England, and I love the English people. But all it will take to put the fork in England's Englishness is a switch from the pound to the Euro. That last gesture will seal its cultural fate.

In any event, click here to see what I thought of my last trip to one of the spots in the geographical place we call Europe.

Big Bucks - Small Times

AP Photo/Bill Kostroun
Some random musings on a late Tuesday night got me thinking about athletes and money. Roger Clemens is back pitching for the Yankees, and they said that his contract for the rest of this year is a prorated 28 millions dollars.

That’s a lot of cash. You’d think Christ Himself had come down for the final judgement, decided instead to work on his curveball, and Steinbrenner gave him a spot on the roster.

This season is a month over. The Rocket won’t be ready to play for another few weeks. That means he won’t appear until June. That gives him a four month season. With baseball’s five-man pitching rotation, this means he’ll probably play in no more than 24 games.

Let’s be generous and say that Clemens will average 7 innings per game (he’s already stated that he won’t go more than 3 or 4 innings in the first couple of games in order to build up his arm). That makes for 168 innings of baseball. A wildly inflated number, but again, I’m being generous. Now let’s say that he averages a very good 15 pitches per inning. That comes to 2520 total pitches.

So this season, every time Roger Clemens puts his hand past his ear, he will earn roughly 9500 dollars. And change.

Imagine that. Go out in your backyard and pick up a rock. Throw it at the fence 10 times. Now pretend you just made a hundred grand.

When we pay to watch a sporting event, what we are really doing is paying to watch millionaires play a leisure activity. There’s no denying that. I love baseball, football, and hockey, but be real: they’re games. Leisure activities. And the people playing them are rich. We simply pay for the right to watch them play these games. Once in a while, we yell at them, and it feels good, or we get drunk at the bar with our buddies, and that feels good, too. But they’re games.

Not a new argument, and it’s not really my point. What struck me about the Clemens deal is that he brought up his family as part of his decision-making process. And I thought to myself, is he nuts?

Any sports star that gets married and has kids before he retires is an idiot. I really believe that. Because man, if I was making ten thousand dollars every time I threw a ball or passed a puck, the last thing I’d want to do is go home to a bunch of screaming kids.

What the hell are they thinking? Getting a five million dollar-a-year contract at the age of 25 is a license to party your ever-loving brains out. You’d own any club you walked into. You’d be the life of the party, chicks all around. Never mind the Chivas, hand me the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue so I can bathe in it.

Presidents invite these people over to dinner. Mayors hand them keys to the city. Hell, you can walk out on that field, throw a ball, complain of “elbow stiffness” and go on the 60-day disabled list. Screw working. For the next two months you can rehab that elbow with a bottle of Heineken in one hand, and a blonde in the other for ballast.

A wife and kids when you can own Broadway? Where’s the fun in that? Besides, you’re taking one hell of a risk getting hitched. The groupie you married knows damn well what you’re up to on the road, because that’s how she met you in the first place. Whenever she feels like it she can sic a photographer on your ass and the next thing you know, your contract is chopped in half.

Where did Joe “I like my Johnnie Walker Red and my women blonde” Namath go? Where’s Mickey Mantle lying in the gutter? Sure, their biographies read all sad and sappy later on, but even when you’re reading about their ‘downfall’ you’d cut off your left ear to have the wild times they did.

Watching the baseball All-Star Game is a drag. All of the players in the dugout are holding their children by the hand, pinching their cheeks, tickling their little bellies. Boooooring. Bring on the beer bongs and the dancing girls. I’ll take Babe Ruth over Peyton Manning any day of the week. And sure, twice on Sundays, come to think of it.

I think it was Shaw that said youth is wasted on the young.

The big bucks are wasted on the morons.

Where Have You Gone, Juan Valdez?

If you're feeling masochistic, you may want to step into the nearest Starbucks and buy yourself a cup of joe. It's not that the coffee is bad. It's the new age coffee culture that kills.

Has anyone else noticed how difficult it is to get a plain cup of coffee these days? While standing in the caffeinated purgatory that is a Starbucks line-up, I recently went through the following hell:

"Grande non-fat 190-degree machioto." Shuffle forward, as Starbucks becomes a WWII submarine and every order is repeated twice.

"Grande non-fat green tea latte." Shuffle forward.
"De-caf grande caramel latte." You want strawberries with that? Shuffle forward.
"Tall extra hot, extra pumped chai with whipped cream." Picky, picky. Shuffle forward.
"Grande de-caf, non-fat latte…with a sweetener."

You know you could never like a guy that orders non-fat anything, let alone someone that throws a sweetener in it when he's done.

The language of Starbucks amuses me. There is not a chance that any of these people knew what "grande" was ten years ago. Likewise chai, latte, or machioto. How did they learn the lingo? They must have been nervous the first time they used ten words to order a cup of coffee, some in a different language to boot. Or perhaps it just comes naturally to people that think there's no easier way to sound sanctimonious than to specify that their coffee be served at exactly 190-degrees. And what about the prices they pay? When a large (pardon me - venti) latte costs almost as much as a six pack of beer, you know things are seriously out of whack.

Coffee shops used to be for smokers and cops. No longer. Now they are reserved for the SUV crowd, the kind of people that would be aghast if someone ordered the same beverage as them. They don't seem to realize how comedic this all is. "Extra hot, extra pumped" sounds more like an order you'd hear in a Panama City cathouse than a suburban coffee shop.

The days of the old boys sitting around the coffee shop are long gone. This worries me. They have nowhere left to go. My last visit to Starbucks gave me an image that made me cringe. Say what you want, but there is something depressing about watching an old man read his morning paper while he drinks iced frappuccino through a straw.

Still, I have my fun. There is no better sight in the morning than the Starbucks Frown. That's what you receive when you tell the Starbucks flunky that you want a "medium coffee." My inner voice screams with delight when the high school girl or aged retiree frowns in disapproval, then says, "A grande Breakfast Blend?"

Whatever. Just make it to go.

Polar Bears? Save the Ice - I'm Having Margaritas

I was goofing off on one one of those Facebook sites when I came across a group dedicated to saving the planet. A woman with an infant in her arms left the following message: "Oh, my heart aches for the polar bears." Actually, she put it in capital letters. I can't figure out if that is because the baby in the picture was screaming and so she shouted to be heard, or if she's just a regular enviro-boob. They seem to be shouting all the time, anyway. The only pollution they don't seem to care about is of the noise variety.

I could go on a long-winded rant about this woman's priorities, but instead I'll pull a cheap move and re-print something from February 2nd. I can't bring myself to write too much more about the environment right now, and my mind hasn't changed much since then, so here goes. Enjoy.

From the Daily Mail (UK):
Global Warming Sees Polar Bears Stranded On Melting Ice

They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.

Captured on film by Canadian environmentalists, the pair of polar bears look stranded on chunks of broken ice. Although the magnificent creatures are well adapted to the water, and can swim scores of miles to solid land, the distance is getting ever greater as the Arctic ice diminishes.

"Swimming 100 miles is not a big deal for a polar bear, especially a fat one," said Dr Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service. "They just kind of float along and kick. But as the ice gets farther out from shore because of warming, it’s a longer swim that costs more energy and makes them more vulnerable."

Bummer.

I don't know what to say about this global warming thing anymore. In the 70's it was global cooling. In the 80's it was warming. Then in the 90's it became 'climate change,' which was a great turn of phrase for the enviro-boobs and unemployed people that wanted to yell at lumberjacks. With the words 'climate change,' bitching about mankind's sins became an all-season sport, snow or shine, blizzard or heatwave.

I studied anthropology in school. That's what the degree says on my wall, anyway (both the degree and the wall are made from tree products. Apologies all around). During those classes we had to look back at history and count the number of ice ages and such. The theory then was that there were three big ones and a bunch of smaller ones.

Not so long ago, Toronto was under a mile of ice and the Great Lakes didn't exist. The ice had to recede in order to leave those puddles behind. So I guess one would have to say that global warming is a damn good thing. Without it, there would be no shopping on Yonge Street, and there would be no forests for the enviro-weenies to run around in.

The conceit of human beings is astounding. The idea that we parasites could affect this planet in any major way is a laugh. It's also a great chuckle watching the National Geographic specials and hearing the narrator give the Obligatory Guilt Trip. At the end of every episode, they always manage to say that such-and-such a thing will cease to exist if Man doesn't change his evil ways. Why? Because the ecosystem is fragile.

Fragile? Tell that to the people in central Florida. A fragile tornado dropped out of the sky the other day and obliterated a town, killing 20 people in the time it takes to make toast.

Katrina, she didn't look too fragile, did she? We stewards of the Earth gaped in slack-jawed wonder at her power, cowered beneath concrete, and watched as she kicked over levees as if they were anthills.

Or the tsunami (Random Aside: can someone tell me where tidal wave went?) That surfer's wetdream wiped out thousands of people and destroyed entire villages and towns in less than ten minutes.

We're supposed to protect the environment from us? Please. More like the other way around. We're as nothing on this spinning globe. Anytime it feels like it, it can give one big belch and we're history.

The Earth is not fragile, and to refute the article above, neither is a bear's grip. Timothy Treadwell could tell us that, were he still around. He's the guy who took his girlfriend up north to live with his furry friends. Treadwell's method of approaching bears was to slowly slink up to them while singing "I love you" in a high-pitched voice. He and his girlfriend are now bear shit.

Our conceit is limitless. The Earth has been through ice ages, massive earthquakes, hurricanes, innumerable volcanoes spitting sulphur into the sky, catastrophic meteorite impacts, so forth. But hairspray and unleaded gas will be the planet's demise?

Ours, maybe. But the Earth doesn't give a damn about us. Ask the next skydiver whose chute doesn't open how fragile the Earth is, and how much it cares. You'll get two four letter words in response. The first is shit!, the other is thud.

Eavesdrop

I overheard a woman talking to her friend outside a mall last night:

"You know Angela. If it doesn't involve manicures, pedicures, martinis, or jogging, she doesn't give a shit."

Such is the epitaph over many a woman's thirties.

Vacancy - Review

Director: Nimrod Antal
Writer: Mark L. Smith
Starring: Luke Wilson/Kate Beckinsale
Runtime: 80 minutes

In Vacancy, Luke Wilson takes a turn away from comedy to try his hand in a horror thriller. The result is a so-so homage to Psycho. Or maybe The Ring. Or perhaps Saw.

Vacancy starts out with Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale driving on a mountain road. They are a husband and wife, and they hate each other. It is night. The road is deserted. They have a map, but they can’t read it properly. They have cell phones, but there’s no signal. They spend a few minutes digging insults at each other as the car winds its way through the mountains. They realize they are lost. Then their car breaks down. The only piece of civilization is a deserted motel with a gas station. What to do?

If you’ve seen enough horror films, you’ll now be screaming "Derivative!" at the top of your lungs. You’d be correct. Yet you also have to feel sorry for the filmmakers.

Horror movies are getting harder and harder to create. GPS systems are making the whole ‘wrong turn’ idea more difficult. Cell phones mean that 911 is only three buttons away. Then there’s the fact that 300 million people live in the US. Just how many empty roads are left for crazy people to hide out in?

As a filmmaker, all you can do is toss it against the wall and hope it sticks: empty road means crazy people means no signal on your cell phone. On with the movie.

Beckinsale and Wilson check into the hotel for the night. The manager is a skinny, creepy fellow, straight out of central casting. He and his motel are such a ripoff of Norman Bates and his establishment that the director throws in the towel and makes it a homage: the motel’s lobby is a replica of Psycho’s, and there’s bird statues on the desk beside the bell, another subtle nod to Norman Bates.

When they check into their motel room, Beckinsale and Wilson are disgusted by the place, but decide to make the best of it. Wilson finds some old VHS tapes beside the TV. He puts one in. It’s a horror scene, with a man and a woman being attacked by a couple of masked men. Wilson puts in another tape. Same thing, people being attacked and stabbed to death. But then Wilson notices that the room in the video tape is the same as the room he is in right now. And when there’s a loud knock on the door, he realizes they are in deep trouble.

I was intrigued. Yes, I’d recently seen most of this (the video in The Ring, the trapped duo in Saw), but I liked the size of Vacancy. Not the length; modern horror films rarely run more than 95 minutes unless they involve an exorcism. In Vacancy, 20 minutes had gone by and we’d only met a few characters. I liked that, because it meant that there might be some solid writing.

With more characters comes more excuses to cheat. If someone’s in trouble, one of a half-dozen people can rush in to save the day in the nick of time. But when the amount of characters are limited, so is the writer’s ability to cheat the audience with a dumb coincidence.

Unfortunately, scribe Mark Smith couldn’t make it the distance. He does a very good job keeping us in the dark for a while, but then he exposes the reason behind these snuff films too early. From then on it is regular run-away-hide-run-away-hide fare, and it's tedious. It is amazing how horror writers and directors don’t trust their instincts, and instead reach for the screenplay manual. In that manual, it says that the lead characters must meet their adversary face to face at the exact mid-point of the movie.

Why, oh why, do they continue to do this? In Vacancy, the knocking on the door, the empty parking lot, the flickering lights, the terrifying videos, all of these things turn the screws. Then the killers are exposed and the suspense is dead. The fear of the unknown is so much more powerful than a man with a knife, and it sickens me when filmmakers have a good thing going and then pull out the cliches.

Luke Wilson does a good job with the role. It takes a few minutes to get his comedic films out of your head, but after that, it’s pretty smooth sailing. Beckinsale is great, but takes a loss when things get physical. The writer turns her into the fraidy-cat girl, and the director lets her act like it, which is a shame.

I know what they were going for. Hollywood is in love with the idea of ‘character arc.’ Even in a horror film, a character must evolve and learn. So this couple starts out hating each other, but by working together to escape psychos, they rekindle their love. Beckinsale learns to cry, Wilson holds her like he did in the old days, bells will ring and birds will chirp. What tripe.

Today’s horror films demand an awful lot of suspension of disbelief. To see if it’s working, I use the audience.

With Vacancy, it was pretty plain they were buying it. They paid to see a run of the mill horror movie, and that’s what they got. The only true groan of disbelief came towards the end. They were right. It was as derivative as it could get, but by then they’d had their fun.

As for me, I was left with those same old words on my lips: “It could have been so much more…”

Curt Schilling - Blogger

I was listening to MLB Homeplate on XM 175 and caught the tail end of host Charley Steiner's interview with a sportscaster. In the interview, Steiner commented on bloggers, and made a point of saying that they don't need any credentials, all they need is a keyboard and a computer.

He was, of course, intimating that bloggers shouldn't be taken seriously when they write about sports. The fact that they don't have any credentials makes them suspect as a source of information.

Fast forward about fifty-five seconds. Steiner moves on to the topic of Curt Schilling's bloody sock. (For those not in the know, broadcaster Gary Thorne reported that Doug Mirabelli said something about the blood on Curt Schilling's sock in the 2004 ALCS being fake. Thorne has since retracted the report, saying he misinterpreted Mirabelli's words). To get Schilling's view, Steiner read out a few words from the Red Sox pitcher. Guess where the words came from?

Curt Schilling's blog.

So which is it, Charley? Are bloggers to be taken seriously, or not? And if you are going to pick and choose your blogs, you'll have to tell your audience what credentials a blogger needs before you'll use his stuff on the air. A journalism degree? A life in politics? A 90-mph fastball?

As Steiner says, all you need to be a blogger is a computer and keyboard. That's true. But tell me, what else do you need to be a journalist? I've published material in various places before, I've cashed the checks, I've written back and forth with editors. There's a degree on my wall, but it isn't in journalism. No editor has ever asked what my degree is in, or if I even have one. In fact, the topic of schooling has never come up.

Why? Because editors couldn't give a damn what degree you hold. Like a GM in baseball, they want one thing and one thing only out of their players: good stuff. They want well-written, topical pieces, that are supported by facts. If you can write an explosive story about the president, supported six ways from Sunday, an editor is not going to toss your stuff in the trash just because you didn't attend Yale.

Let's get one thing straight: if Steiner is talking about bloggers that are writing "Red Sox suck!" on their front pages, then I am on his side entirely. But if he's talking about all bloggers everywhere, then I think he's full of it. And he's also afraid. He's afraid that enough people with a computer and keyboard might find out how to do his job, and they might even take his job away from him.

The internet has blown things wide open on all fronts. Buying a house used to be the domain of the real estate agent. An agent could tell you whatever they wanted, and you more or less had to believe them. "The market's tanking," they could say, and you'd sell early, afraid of taking a loss. That isn't the case now. Today you can go on-line and do a couple of weeks of research before even contacting the real estate agent. If the agent hands you a line of bull, you'll know it, and you'll move on to somebody else. That is, if you think you still need somebody else. Maybe you'll just do it yourself.

Term life insurance, the cost of video games, the stats on a big league pitcher, all of this is the same thing: information. The experts used to hoard this information for themselves, and we would pay them to give it to us. Now we don't have to. I can compare life insurance policies from different companies in the blink of an eye. I can find out that the video game at one store is ten bucks cheaper than the other guy's. I can go online and see for myself how well a pitcher does against right-handed hitting. In the process of looking up that stat, I save myself a dollar on a newspaper.

It is no wonder that Steiner and his brethren are afraid of bloggers. Guys like him used to be able to tell people whatever they wanted. They chose what information we were allowed to hear. It was they alone who decided what was newsworthy, and what was not.

The rules have changed. Ten years ago if he had said something on the air, no one could check it out. Now we can. We can research his research, and we can debate him on any issue that he brings up, short of going into his personal life. Virtually all of the information he has, we have. Even if he has an interview with someone, there is nothing stopping a person from going online, finding that guest's agent, and trying to set up an interview of their own.

What I find disturbing about Steiner's attitude is its conceit. The idea that all of the people out there with keyboards and computers are sheep. If you don't have a newspaper's name on your letterhead, you can't write intelligently about baseball? Ludicrous. Charley Steiner watches a baseball game, reads the newswire, checks the stats, then goes on the air to pontificate about it. Fine. But who can't do that? Nobody. Because we all have Charley's tools.

Regarding the mainstream media types, Schilling had this to say:

"Does anyone stop reading their newspapers? Watching the shows they appear on? The answer to that is no. Instead of using the forums they participate in to do something truly different, change lives, inspire people, you have an entire subset of media whose sole purpose in life is to actually be the news, instead of report it."

Well put, blogger.

Memory Murmur

John D. MacDonald had an interesting take on life. It went something like this:

You and all of the people you know are on a very small island. That island is your life. The raging waters passing by that island are life itself. On that island you live out your days together. You play, laugh, dance, weep, and smile. But eventually someone steps a little too close to the waterline, and they're gone. You watch them fading into the distance, and perhaps they're not drowning but waving, but in any case, they're gone. A memory. And you go back to being with the people on your island.

As you get older, some people come to the island, and some people are washed away. The older you get, the more people slip into the waters until they are gone. And, if you've lived a long life, eventually you are alone on that island. Maybe one or two other people are with you. Until they too are engulfed. And then it's just you, waiting to go under.

Depressing.

But it makes sense. When you stroll through a cemetery and see a man's grave marker that reads 1902, it doesn't take much imagination to realize that there is not a single person still alive that knew him. He might make for a tall tale around the campfire, but no one misses him. He's just gone.

Not that the dead guy worries about it. The Romans used to put an epitaph on the grave markers of slaves. It got straight to the point:

I was not.
I was.
I am not.
I do not care.

Indeed.

Memories are like grave markers. Every once in a while we smell a cup of coffee, or hear a car horn, and someone's image pops into our minds. I have always been fascinated by that. You do not need to hear a person's name to remember them. Something merely has to happen, and for some reason this triggers a chemical reaction in your brain that says, "Johnny, getting hit in the face by a baseball." Or, "Jennifer, when she laughed at me because I couldn't undo her bra."

It is people, of course, that are the meat of memories. If I say to you, "High school," it's doubtful you'll get too far before picturing a person's face in your mind. If you push that memory a little further, you'll probably remember more about them than you thought possible. And if you keep at it, you might be able to remember the last time you physically saw them. Until they were gone, washed off your island. Not by death (as far as you know), but by time and circumstance.

Memories are a bitch, aren't they? Try as you might, they just don't seem real. When I think back on events five years ago, it's almost like they happened to somebody else. Could I have really felt that way? Did I really say that? Was I really that happy/sad/elated/scared? It felt so real then. Why doesn't it feel real now?

I remember hearing about a friend that died. He wasn't a close friend, but we shared some drinks and jokes together. He was a hell of a guy. He got married, and three years later he dropped dead. I hadn't seen him in a long time. When I got the news, the first thing that popped into my head was him cutting up a salami and asking me if I wanted some. That memory comes from an all-night bender that we'd had. At the end of the night he pulled out some salami, some bread, and a knife. He said, "You want some salami?"

I feel like I cheated him. Nobody's first memory after death should involve a damned salami. I like to think he'll forgive me for that.

For me the hardest part about remembering people that are still alive, and missing them, is not their absence. It is the idea that they are doing things without me. I won't hear their stories, share their joys. They are gone just as if they had been unplugged from life.

Certainly we've all been there. It doesn't take very long to feel like you've been washed off the island. A friend says good-bye, and a short time later you get a mass email. And deep down you realize: "They don't need me anymore." They are busy making more memories, only this time you aren't in them. You do not, as it were, exist.

One time I wrote to an old girlfriend of mine. She lives in London and I was going there for some reason or other. I would only be there for the day. I thought it would be swell if we could hang out down by Piccadilly Circus and have a cup of coffee, share a few laughs. She wrote back to tell me that she was busy that day, but she hoped I would have a great time. And I was momentarily angry with her. Why could she not spare the time? And then it hit me that she's alive and living a life that I haven't been part of in years.

I found out an old friend of mine had a blog. I opened it up. It's a very personal blog, with daily routines and who's doing what to whom. I read it briefly. And I closed it. I'll check in on it from time to time, to see what they're up to, but it is like reading the diary of a stranger. It smacks of research, not reminiscence. Did I know that person the way people know them now? Did I really know them at all?

Casino Royale - Review

Director: Martin Campbell
Writers: Purvis/Wade/Haggis
Starrng: Daniel Craig/Judi Dench
Runtime: 144 minutes

George Lazenby: "I'd loved to have had that time over again and done another one or two (Bond films), it would have worked out great for me."

Lazenby would know. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was a good flick, and Lazenby did a fine job in the lead role. So what did he do with it? He squandered it away and watched his career take a tumble into mediocrity, if not outright obscurity.

There have now been 21 Bond films, with another currently in production. It is without doubt the most successful franchise in film history, and it has catapulted stars to fame and fortune, some of it deserved, some of it not. It made Sean Connery the film star he is, even though he once said he hated the character. The end of Roger Moore’s career, and the bulk of his retirement fund, was built not on the 401K, but the 007.

Timothy Dalton? Please. Without James Bond as his alter-ego in the ‘80s, no one would even know who Timothy Dalton is. Or rather, was.

Pierce Brosnan didn’t seem to need 007, but let’s be frank: before James Bond, he was more or less the guy from Scarecrow and Mrs. King. After James Bond, he is the man who has made a couple of extremely questionable film choices. After the Sunset was a bust, and The Matador, though an interesting character study, didn’t bring in the crowds. In that movie, Brosnan played a lunatic assassin who looked ridiculous in a Speedo. One has to wonder what Brosnan was thinking when his agent pitched him the script: “I just quit being the most popular action hero there ever was. So you want me to sprout a funny moustache, grow a beer gut, and wear skimpy underwear? Where do I sign up?”

All big film stars should have the following note written on their groupies’ foreheads: “Playing against type is how new guys get noticed. Playing against type is also how film stars destroy their careers.”

The fact that James Bond has been played by so many actors without missing a beat is all the evidence you need that the actor playing him doesn’t matter much.

That is why I took no notice of the anti-Craig hype when Daniel Craig decided to come on board as the next incarnation of 007. When I heard his name, I scratched my head, then snapped my fingers and said, “Oh, yeah, that English guy. From…”

“Layer Cake,” my friend said.

Sounds good to me, I thought. In Layer Cake, Daniel Craig was a good looking English guy with a gun. When you get down to it, that’s about all you need to play Bond. Even if an American were cast as Bond, traditionalists would protest vehemently, but they would go and see the movie. Some would like it, some would not, it would turn a profit, and we would await the next one.

Bond movies are Bond vehicles, not star vehicles. The actor is incidental, because you are not going to the movie to see him, you are going to see what he does: say a funny line or two, escape death, screw some women, and save the world.

I finally caught up with Casino Royale and it surprised me. Not because it cut back on the gadgetry, and not because Daniel Craig is a superb actor that brought anything new to the role. What surprised me about Casino Royale is that it had balls.

From the beginning of the film, the writers (Purvis/Wade/Haggis; God knows who wrote or re-wrote what scenes, but such is Hollywood) let you know that this time it is going to be a little bit different. A black and white scene opens the film, a subtle gesture to tell us that this is the first Bond, not the next Bond, just as Casino Royale was the first of the Bond novels.

Inside of three minutes, Craig’s Bond has killed two men. These are apparently Bond’s first ‘hits,’ and he shows no squeamishness about performing them. This is refreshing, in the sense that a hitman wouldn’t be hired as a hitman if he was afraid of killing people. M, played by an underused but always good Judi Dench, reminds us a little further into the film that the double-oh prefix in Bond’s title means he has a license to kill. This is also refreshing, since in past Bond films, the words kill and death were lacking from the script, no matter how many bodies flew through the air.

Bond had become a video game. This time around, the writer and director have the guts to give Bond his balls back and make him what Fleming always said he was: a hitman in a tuxedo.

He still gets the ladies, of course. One fantastic line in the film comes when Bond is talking to a beautiful assistant in the back of a car. He tells her she’s not his type.

“Smart?” she says.

“Single,” he replies.

And that’s about all the dialogue you’re going to get out of Daniel Craig. The writer has parsed his words down to next to nothing, and the film is better for it. Not because Craig can’t deliver dialogue, but because, what’s the point?

I was surprised by the balls of the writers, as well as those on director Martin Campbell. He keeps the focus on the violence of Bond, the subtleties of the character. This is courageous, considering what has come before. Laser beams, rockets, explosions, they are done away with. Bullets are about as sophisticated as it gets, and when Bond is tortured, it’s done the old fashioned way: he’s tied to a chair and receives a vicious beating. In the balls.

Though taken from the first Bond novel, the film is updated. Cell phones and laptops are put to use, and the baccarat game is replaced by Texas Hold ‘Em poker. This is a smart move by the filmmakers. American audiences would have been lost by baccarat, and the popularity of Texas Hold ‘Em on ESPN makes it the obvious choice.

The guts of the director come out again in the poker scenes. They take a good twenty minutes of screentime to develop, and it would have been very easy for him to skim it. He doesn’t. The game is played as if the audience knows what is happening. You can almost hear the director saying, “Don’t know the game? Lean over and ask your neighbour, because I’m taking this to to the limit. The movie’s called Casino Royale for God’s sake.”

The film is long, but not drawn out. I enjoyed watching the director take Bond through some water that hasn’t been charted in years. Bond, physically disabled. Bond, in love. Bond, truly enraged. Bond, out for vengeance and enjoying that vengeance. Bond, touchingly emotional. Yes, for the first time in ages, Bond actually strikes an emotional chord. It borders on melodrama, and isn’t as poignant as when Bond’s wife died (it has been a long time since you saw George Lazenby, hasn’t it?), but it is a quality scene.

But how was Daniel Craig, you might ask?

He was fine. As with all the other Bonds, he did a good job with the material and he didn’t try to play Hamlet. Like a smart actor with a smart director, he knew to keep his Laurence Olivier in check and let the character’s mystique cloud our vision of the actor beneath.

For his sake, I'm glad he's following what would be Lazenby’s advice: “Do two.”