Beulah is right.

About many things. But most recently about the fact that there always seems to be some sort of James Bond marathon on. And I'm glad about that. I think a previous post of mine may have conveyed an erroneous sentiment of displeasure on my part, but I should correct that by saying that I adore the James Bond franchise, and I will watch any and all of it whenever any and/or all of it is on the air. I was just noting that the things that are wrong with the movies are part of their charm, but I may not have bounced back and announced that the things that are wrong with them are not numerous and are largely invisible to anyone who enjoys a good time at the cinema. I have to be careful not to become a complete stick-in-the-mud at the movies. I never cared, growing up, whether things were all that believable. I just liked not being stuck in a room in Guam, listening to the air-conditioning and watching dustmotes floating through beams of sunlight. Whatever was on was fine. I loved movies like Superfuzz, because that's what was at the theater on the Navy base. I was starving to suspend my disbelief. And I need to be reverent of that when I watch these films today. Maybe it's the ruination of so many of my beloved stories that makes me a cranky nitpicker. But not everyone is George Lucas or Brannon Braga. And not every movie is meant to look real.

I was watching Trekkies 2 tonight with my friend Steve, and I had to admit on a number of occasions that the philosophies of the documentary subjects were sometimes totally congruous with my own. One guy said something to the effect of, Even when the episodes are bad, you love to watch them. And I turned to Steve and said, "That's true, actually. Even when they're bad, I love them." That is true for me of Star Trek, and it's true of James Bond. Tonight, working as I have been in agony and in want of any excuse for distraction, I have cruised through Live and Let Die, Thunderball, and I'm now watching Dr. No. Again. And even at the end of Live and Let Die when Kananga flies out of the water and explodes when he hits that crossbeam, and the humanoid model they used for the explosion made both my sister and me wince at its corniness when we watched it on Betamax as junior high school students with nearly nothing else to do but compete in spelling bees and try and contract eating disorders -- even that scene is fine by me. In the same way that those scenes in Poltergeist with the dude in front of the mirror tearing his own face off are still fine by me. Not as scary as they once were. But fine. Roger Moore trots across a row of crocodiles and alligators like it's stepping stones in a koi pond. I'm in love with that. It's unfortunate that the movie was made in the year it was, as the fashion sense isn't nearly as swanky as I prefer, and it sure does have a lot of Black people in it, but I'm just saying that to be a jerk and to prove to myself that no one is actually reading this.

The "Chinese" girl from the office in Dr. No lives at Magenta Drive 23... That's a fine address, I have just decided.

My pal Robert is in Trekkies 2. I was watching...watching...watching...and then there he was. And then a little later. And then again in the credits. It's surprising and awesome when that happens. When you can say, "Hey, I know that guy!" Especially when he's in a documentary about the one subject that made what might have been a peninsula an isthmus, wherein he and I are the two land masses and the isthmus is a friendship. If you wield metaphor as clumsily and cheaply as I do, you'll find you're often explaining yourself outright, which is really just a waste of everyone's time.

And I have had work to do this whole time.