What’s done is done

Vanitas is now available on Kindle for $4.20. It will be available in paperback form on November 21st.

There’s been a lot of controversy about self publishing on Amazon. But Capitalism can’t be stopped folks. Jeff Bezos owns everything; from my entire bibliography to the underwear around my waist. Like you, I’m a slave to The Man. But unlike you, I stand in solidarity with James Bond himself as a fellow peon to the Amazon.com. So in many ways, by self publishing with Amazon KDP, I’m actually fighting AGAINST the oligarchy by providing my services at basement prices. I’m the good guy here.

All 164 pages of Vanitas will be available in paperback form at the low price of $79.99.

Welcome to my cock

Here’s the deal. I don’t think the 1996 Michael Bay classic The Rock is a James Bond movie. It’s well established that all the James Bonds, from Sean Connery to Pierce Brosnan, are the same character. But something about this theory appeals to me. Connery’s portrayal of 007 felt distant. Impenetrable. It’s interesting to consider his segment of the franchise as something different from the whole. But if the Rock is, in fact, a James Bond movie, we get to see another angle of the 007 universe, chiefly the political fallout. Until Craig, Bond didn’t give two shits about the real world consequences of his clandestine activities. But under Connery, he stopped WWIII and nuclear war several times. Wouldn’t you think that might have caused a stir in Washington, Moscow, and other centers of world politics? So The Rock, if one wishes to include it in their head cannon, greatly expands the mythology of the Connery Bond tenure.

But what’s also cool about the video above is that this guy goes into some minute detail. Like, he REALLY maps out a timeline. I mean, people call me a dork. But GODDAMN. But the best part of his reconstruction is that the only reason why Bond ended up in Alcatraz is due to the ending of Dr. No when he disconnects his boat from the US Marines to shag Honey Rider. Apparently that was a bad decision which led to an erroneous capture, followed by a tenure in federal prison. Honestly, that was the most realistic part of his explanation.

Cock n bull

You know what a great scene in a movie is? It’s that opening ski sequence in A View to a Kill. A lot of people hate that movie. They say “Roger Moore is too old to play James Bond”. Or “all the characters act really stupid. Or “it’s a rehashed plot from Goldfinger”. And it’s all true. But goddamn, that cold open was lowkey pretty badass. Say what you want about John Glen’s tenure as director throughout the 80s, but the man could direct the hell out of a pre title sequence. For Your Eyes Only notwithstanding, all the cold opens in the 1980s were dope as hell. I’m not saying that AVTAK’s opening was better than The Living Daylights, but I will say that the skiing is probably the most intense in any James Bond movie. Think about it dawg: it’s got helicopters flying overhead, Bond jumping down crevasses and skiing down sides of ice cliffs, snowboarding, you name it. And they show it all in six minutes or less. What ruins it for most is the Beach Boys playing over the snowboarding, but that’s just Glen’s directing style. He was known for ruining intense action sequences by cutting to someone’s stupid face, or in this case, playing an ill timed song. It doesn’t take away from the fact that it was incredible footage. So yeah, come to find out that A View to a Kill is good folks 🤷‍♂️

If u love it let it go

This is the great dying of beloved franchises. And while I can sit back and laugh at Star Wars and LotR fans for their respective enshitifications, I too have witnessed the sad decline of the much loved series Star Trek, which had as much of an impact on me as James Bond. Luckily for me, I had Redlettermedia guide me through the mourning process and now I hardly think about Star Trek at all. In fact, in my head canon, Star Trek effectively ended with Enterprise in 2002. Fans can gloat on about how under appreciated Discovery was, or how good Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds is, etc, etc. But it’s over for me.

This is the way it should be. For something to be truly appreciated, its very existence has to be jeopardized. But this also allows us to pave way for the future.

I could have bitched and moaned about Denis Villeneuve and Amazon’s decision to focus the next Bond movie on 007’s early adventures in a 3+hour action romp, but whatever. That’s out of my control. I’m an old Bond head and the next film is not being made with me in mind. I turn 109 next summer. It’s time for some new blood. But unlike with Star Trek, there will be no one to help me through the mourning. James Bond doesn’t have that kind of fan base. I have to sit alone in a garage with a bottle of Taaka and a loaded .38 and weep alone. At least that’s the way James Bond would have wanted.

But in the words of megalomaniac Paul of Tarsus, it’s time to put childish things away and accept that James Bond died by a brutal missile barrage in No Time To Die. That’s the way he would have wanted it.

The sum of all fears

If you ask me what my greatest fear is I’d tell you that it’s being caught by the Colombian cartel, lit on fire and getting tossed from a helicopter into alligator infested waters. If you ask me what my second greatest fear is, I’d tell you that it’s Jeff Bezos and Denis Villeneuve fuckin up the James Bond franchise in the grandest way possible.

You know that they will. And there’s nothing we can do about it. Not one goddamn thing.

I’ve made several pitches on this blog about how to revive the franchise. And all of my calls have gone unanswered. So I’ll make my final stand here.

To Jeff Bezos. To Steven Wright. To Denis Villeneuve: all of you better listen and you better listen damn good. My advice to you is to not overthink it. Just send James Bond on a regular ol mission like they used to do in the olden days.

But you and I both know that’s not happening. A two hour runtime just isn’t how tentpole movies are made anymore. Additionally, no one wants a James Bond backstory. He is an inexplicably broken man between the ages 35 to 55 and there’s no need to go deeper than that. But you will.

So you want to fuck up the franchise? Fine. It’s your money. But here’s how you do it:

Cold open. A young 20 something James Bond 007 is on a mission. We don’t need to go into the backstory. We need to go back to the days of Goldfinger. The cold open should be a beautiful piece of nonsense: Bond infiltrates a compound, blows it the fuck up, and then beds a woman. Show the audience what this movie is capable of. So Do what they did in Goldeneye. You wow the audience with not ONE incredible stunt. You do TWO. And you do it all in seven minutes or LESS. The days of 20 minute cold opens are over. And once the final stunt is complete, it rolls over into the title sequence. And I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT fuck this up. The title song needs to be Goldfinger, Nobody Does It Better, and A View to a Kill all in ONE. You need to get to work on this yesterday!

With the title sequence over, it’s time to roll over into the plot. It’s 10 years later. M is played by Idris Elba. He’s sitting behind his desk and he is bored AS FUCK. Everyone keeps coming into his office telling him that the latest drone strikes have been successful and he waves them off. Tanner comes in with yet another boring ass report and M loses his shit. “Remember when this job used to be fun?” he moans to his chief of staff.

“No sir,” says Tanner.

Meanwhile, who exactly the bad guys are has become less clear and the world is mired in rising tensions between the US, Russia, and China. But a strange eccentric billionaire has come on the scene (we’ll call him Beff Jezos) and he’s doing some weird shit while world leaders are looking the other way. M keeps his eye on him and he keeps warning the Minister of Defense but the Minister waves him off. Then M gets a call from his counterpart in US intelligence. He tells him that Jezos is stepping up his weird shit and that he wishes they can go back to the olden days. “Remember James Bond? That guy was cool as shit. He could get to the bottom of this,” the US intelligence chief tells M.

“That was a different time,” M says.

He hangs up the phone and pours a scotch. He takes his glass to the reception area to discuss matters with Moneypenny. She briefs him on the day’s usual bullshit and he nods and takes a drink. “What ever happened to Bond?” he asks her.

“James Bond? Last I heard he was back in the Navy,” she says.

“You haven’t spoken to him since?”

“As far as I know he still plays baccarat at the casino.”

“Do you mind paying him a visit? Ask him if he’d like to come visit me. I just want to catch up on old times.”

Moneypenny raises an eyebrow but agrees. That night she goes to the London casino. She enters and in the faraway corner she sees James Bond, not in a tux but dressed casually, throwing down some cards. He’s playing across the table from Sylvia Trench. Moneypenny is stopped at the door and she asks to speak with Bond. The receptionist retrieves him and he steps out into the lobby to talk to his old colleague. He’s clearly three sheets to the wind.

“M would like to speak to you,” she says.

“About what?”

“He wants to catch up on old times.”

Bond laughs and lights up a cigarette. “Tell M I’m now a commander in the Royal Navy. They’re about to give me my own ship. Tell him I’m never coming back.”

“You know he won’t take no for an answer.”

“Yeah? Well if he wants to talk to me, I’m sure he can find me.”

A few days later, we see Bond in his sharp Naval uniform as he’s reporting for duty as an XO on a battleship. He shows up, gives out a few orders, and then he gets ripped out by his captain for showing up late. In the middle of this asschewing, an admiral steps in. The Admiral is M, now wearing his naval uniform. The captain jumps to attention and salutes. “Sir, had I of know you’d be here…,” he pleads.

“This is an unscheduled visit. Now if you’ll excuse us, I’d like to speak with Commander Bond alone.”

The captain nods and departs. It is revealed that James Bond’s last mission as a 00 agent went sideways and he lost his confidence. M then proceeds to give him a Colonel Troutman like speech about him being the best and that the world, and England, needs him. M hands him a Universal Exports business card. “If you need me, you know where to find me,” he says.

Bond takes the card and spends the next several days in agonizing pain as he considers his career options.

Meanwhile, shit gets real with Jezos. He steals nuclear weapons or some stupid McGuffin and threatens the world with it. The Minister of Defense calls M. “Activate the 00s,” he orders.

“About bloody time!” M beams.

James Bond shows up at the nick of time and is given the rundown. He goes to Q to pick up his gadgets and quips “just like the olden days,” and then he’s sent on his mission. Early on, Bond stumbles a bit while he tries to shake the dust off. But while he’s tracking down a henchman, he dons his signature tuxedo and he does some badass shit with his gadgets, and the audience cheers just like when they saw Batman again in the Dark Knight Rises because James Bond is BACK!

And that’s just the first hour and half of the movie!

The boss man cummeth

Anyway, I was listening to Seth Harp talk about his book The Fort Bragg Cartel and it suddenly hit me: this is why I find James Bond intriguing. The very nature of being a killing machine is antithetical to our natural state, yet the government breeds men to commit crimes against humanity. Of course James Bond’s actions are portrayed as necessary and even ethical but the truth is that lots and lots and LOTS of people die. And for our own consumption, death becomes spectacle. So the truth is I see James Bond as a perverse and almost Paul Verhoeven-esque tale.

Harp talks about how crimes that are committed by Delta Force operators are swept under the rug. In a sense, these guys have a license to kill with impunity. He goes further and explains that operators can even put up James Bond-like numbers on their kill count for each mission. That ain’t cool. That’s pants-shittingly terrifying. Imagine if you had that as a job. What kind of person would that make you? Meanwhile, Hollywood and the propaganda machine portray this kind of endeavor with fantastical reverence.

So James Bond isn’t escapism. it’s a horror story; a horror story that you play a part in by making it escapism.

Anywho, hope Seal Team 6 doesn’t come after me for buying that book 😬

Wes Lexner x 4

Big news.

Last night I announced that Anaideia will be published in book form sometime soon. I’m on my third or fourth draft so far and I’ll probably have it ready before the end of the year. It’s an unusual story and if submitted, I’m sure publishers will have plenty of notes about changes that I will be unwilling to make. I am nothing without my artistic integrity. Therefore it will be self published. Because of my beef with Amazon over their hostile takeover of James Bond, it is unlikely I will be self publishing with their services. I will let you know once I find an alternative method.

But news also dropped that Dead Star Press will be releasing Stories No One Should Read, a collection of short stories written by yours truly. It’s a game changer; a paradigm shift in English-language literature. This is the critical juncture where the decades old craft of shitposting becomes an elevated art form. Future critics will both praise and curse my name.

Now if you recall, the toilet factory convinced me, essentially at gunpoint, to return to school to quote “get a real fucking diploma”, end quote. So that will be taking effect next week. My time will be limited. Mind you, nothing will ever stop me from updating this blog, not even death. But posts might appear intermittently. I partially use this website to publish first drafts of long form content, which is what I did with Anaideia and will continue to do with kingdom of god. In fact, the latter will probably take more than a year to complete since it’s my first “serious” work. If I’m not able to maintain focus, then I will return to the good old days of shit posting.

With that said, Stories No One Should Read and Anaideia will probably be the last things I will publish for the next couple of years.

Thank you for your attention on this matter.

James Bond 2049

You know what, good for Amazon. Everyone rightfully shit on them for wrestling away the James Bond franchise from the Broccolis and they immediately turned the narrative around by landing the hottest director on the market right now. All that Denis Villeneuve does is hit balls out of the park, from Prisoners to Sicario to Blade Runner 2049 to Dune. If you want to shut your critics right the fuck up then you get this guy on your team.

With this announcement, the countdown is on. We’re only months, possibly weeks, away from the casting of a new James Bond actor and with Villeneuve on board and an infinite amount of money at his disposal, James Bond has entered A-list territory. Not that James Bond wasn’t A-list before. Academy Award winning director Sam Mendes already helmed two 007 pictures. But this time something feels different and I’m not sure what to think about it.

Villeneuve has a distinct style; a certain way his pictures move: visually rich, slow paced, big ideas, etc. In some ways, he’s not all that different from Christopher Nolan. But unlike Nolan, there’s nothing about Villeneuve’s filmography that screams James Bond 007. And given how big studios have fucked up big named properties in the last decade, I still think Amazon has to prove itself. Villeneuve doesn’t change that.

No one bats 1.000.

Maybe a part of me doesn’t want Bond to be “elevated” material. Mind you, even before Amazon, the Broccolis began this elevated process during the Daniel Craig era. But I think old school fans like myself are screaming for simpler times. Bond doesn’t need an emotional arc. Just make the movies episodic, ya know?

But the Villeneuve announcement has received an overwhelmingly positive reception on the internet and the only one who’s not excited is me. And I think I know why: for the first time, the next James Bond that will be cast will be younger than me. That’s not a big deal, it’s just an unusual experience. I’m beginning to feel my age. And that’s when you realize that they are no longer making movies with YOU in mind.

So this is very much a ME problem. I’ve told y’all time and time again: if I ever become one of those old guys who can’t roll with the changes then you have my expressed permission to find me in a dark alleyway and shoot me dead. But that doesn’t make things any easier so bear with me.

With all this said, the silver lining is that at least the James Bond franchise is in better hands than Star Trek 🤷‍♂️

He didn’t even say goodbye!

So the other day I was thinking “what’s that ol goofball Joe Don Baker up to these days?” then news hit that he died on May 7th, 2025. So he was busy being dead 😔

RIP

Baker, of course, was in many movies but because this is a part time James Bond blog, we’re gonna focus on his roles as Brad Whitaker and Jack Wade which spanned three movies. We’re particularly gonna focus on the latter. When Jack Wade appeared as James Bond’s CIA contract in St. Petersburg, Russia for Goldeneye, a few fans were left wondering why it wasn’t Felix Leiter. I assume that the practical explanation was that right-wing political pundit Robert Davi had Leiter’s legs bitten off by a shark in License to Kill (the film prior to Goldeneye) and could therefore no longer be in the CIA as a result. But because timelines are a little iffy in the franchise, I think I have a better answer.

In the classic timeline, from Connery to Pierce Brosnan, Felix Leiter’s primary responsibilities were handling clandestine operations in the United States and its direct sphere of influence (like the Caribbean for instance). The one time Leiter wasn’t operating in within the US was in The Living Daylights where he was spying on arms dealer Brad Whitaker (played by Joe Don Baker) in Tangiers. BUT, if you didn’t notice, Whitaker was an AMERICAN. So, by my reasoning under the classic timeline, Felix Leiter only handled operations on US soil OR on foreign soil regarding US citizens. That would better explain why Jack Wade, and not Felix Leiter, was Bond’s contact in Goldeneye.

Jack Wade was unfortunately last seen in Tomorrow Never Dies where he orchestrated Bond’s HALO jump into the South China Sea. The character’s final line was the prophetic “he didn’t even say goodbye!” after 007 leaps out of a plane. Sadly, we never got suitable closure for Jack Wade.

I can only assume that the character was a creation of author and screenwriter Bruce Feirstein, the only credited screenwriter for both Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies. He was also credited for The World Is Not Enough along with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, but Jack Wade was never seen again. It’s a shame. While Jack Wade would have been out of place for The World is Not Enough, he would have been perfect for Die Another Day, particularly after Bond’s release from a North Korean torture prison. Just picture it: after being tortured for a year, Bond stumbles back across the 38th Parallel to be greeted by Robinson and Jack Wade, with Wade shouting “Hey Jimbo!”. That would have made James Bond so happy. Instead he gets greeted by Michael Madsen.

I would have personally stumbled back to the torture prison if I were him.

But because Joe Don Baker was such a distinguished and unique actor, I don’t think Jack Wade should ever be recast. That’s his role. And unlike every other character in the James Bond universe, no other actor could play it.

RIP Joe Don Baker

Diamonds r 4eva commentary (part XII)

There comes a point in every Bond movie where one tends to forget the plot and just sits back and enjoys the action. For me, and perhaps for many others, that moment comes at the arrival in Los Angeles. But if it doesn’t come there then it DEFINITELY comes during the Circus Circus sequence. And as a result, to my knowledge, I don’t think anyone has ever questioned the logic of this scene.

To set it up, after Plenty O’Toole is dispensed with, Tiffany seduces Bond into giving up the diamonds by convincing him that she’ll run off with him to Hong Kong. Bond plays along with this deception by instructing her to pick up the diamonds at Circus Circus, a major hotel and casino. To make any sort of sense in what follows, here’s what I think the plan was (which is never explicitly stated): Bond, a British Intelligence agent, was operating on US soil. For a foreign agent to legally do that, they must do so under the supervision of American intelligence which, in the case here, is the CIA and Felix Leiter. The rendezvous at Circus Circus was the contact point where Bond was to turn over the operation to Felix with Bond acting as a fail safe option should the CIA lose track of Tiffany Case by meeting her at the car rental agency. But Bond plainly stated that this is a 50/50 shot which explains why he was on Felix’s ass; if the CIA lost track of her, there was no guarantee that Bond would catch up with her. So when the inevitable happened and the Felix lost track of her and she subsequently failed to show up at the car rental agency, Bond took a blind guess and found her at her house.

If this is the case then the CIA did a piss poor job. Why would they make it painfully obvious to Tiffany Case that she was being followed? Was the plan to follow her or apprehend her? To my reasoning, it had to of been the latter in order to get her to cooperate with Bond in the British intelligence investigation. In that case, why not apprehended her immediately after she collected the diamonds? Did the CIA not want to make a scene?

I know what Cubby Broccoli’s response is: who gives a shit?

This is what they call in the biz “movie magic” where we don’t have to worry about things like “realism” or “plot”. We just have to shut our brains off and enjoy the spectacle.

And what a spectacle it is! Within the stretch of just over four minutes, we’re exposed to trapeze artists, elephants playing slot machines, human women transforming into gorillas, and even a cameo by the owner of Circus Circus himself as a mad scientist. It’s no wonder we lose track of the plot! This scene isn’t so much a part of a movie as it is an advertisement for the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino.

But there’s two moments I’d like to highlight. First is the moment where Tiffany collects the diamonds hidden in a stuffed animal. While at the blackjack table, she’s instructed to play the water balloons. She wins the “prize” (the diamonds) and a kid correctly calls out that the game was rigged. Tiffany tells the kid to “blow up his pants”, which is a line that could have only been written by Mankiewicz. To be honest, I’ve seen this movie more times than I care to admit but each time I think she’s gonna say “fart out your ass kid!”.

That’s all I got to say about that.

The second moment is when Tiffany realizes she’s being followed and enters the “Zambora” exhibit to elude her pursuers. An announcer explains “Zambora” as the “strangest woman ever born to live” which seems like a redundant statement.

But anyway! Back to the plot…

TO BE CONTINUED…