Gun Play

So, there's this retro-50s-type theme park in northern New Jersey called Wild West City. A large part of its appeal is its unselfconscious lack of political correctness. There are "shootouts" in the street, saloon fights (the liquid in the whiskey bottles is tea), Virgil Earp smokes a cigar during the Gunfight at the OKCorral skit. It's wonderdul. But some uptight-types object to it as a class trip destination for urban youngsters who are already obsessed with firearms -- like suburban and rural kids aren't? I asked one of these chaperones how many class trips teach kids about the historical contribution of people who look like them -- people of color. WWC has a black marshal. And black and Hispanic cowboys. She admitted it was the only one.

Deny-Ability

There is no shortage of groups of people I don't understand: people who think they are the only ones with God's ear. people who keep ferrets as pets, people who eat sushi. But, the people who really confound me are people who deny the Holocaust. I mean, there are PICTURES. This didn't happen during an era when the only way to disseminate information was Alan-a-Dale and his mandolin, or lute, or whatever it was. How can people deny all the evidence? And how can they explain all the people with missing relatives? Don't they know people with no grandparents or aunts and uncles? Talk about living in denial. And, what is even more scarey is that people in Iran actually voted for somebody who thinks that way. Note to Iranians voters: he's wrong and if he's wrong about something that big, think about what else he's wrong about.

Don't mess with this stuff

The new version of Casino Royale was on TV the other night. They should have stuck with the David Niven parody. This one was a parody, too, but not conscious (apparently) and not very successful. Ian Fleming is doing some serious haunting right now. Daniel Craig is a good actor, but he is not Bond on so many levels. For one thing, he's blond and doesn't have enough hair on his chest, but that's just superficial. The writers did both Craig and the public a disservice by turning Bond into a thug and asking Craig to play him that way. My son says today is the age of the anti-hero. Ok, so stop making James Bond movies until the times are ready for a hero again. Don't desecrate Fleming's A+ grade B-novel writing. Actually, I don't believe we are no longer in need of heros. I believe that suave, sophisticated Bond would still bring people in to the movies -- a lot of people just watch them for the gadgets anyway. And women watch them for the guys who play Bond. And guys watch them for the latest Bond girl. So why change the image so drastically? It was a dumb move. It may have netted some serious change. But, it was a dumb move.