[MiSTing] James Bond is your real life enemy
gur...@saruman.wizard.net
This is my first "real" MiSTing (the other was quite brief, and put together
in about half an hour's time). It also includes actual host segments!
Comments and criticisms greatly encouraged; gur...@wizard.net is the best
way to get in touch. Thanks, and enjoy!
6...5...4...3...2...<chunk>
[SOL, as usual. Mike, Tom, Crow, and Gypsy are all standing in a row,
squarely facing the camera. They don't move. Nothing happens for
quite awhile, until commercial sign flashes, and Mike hits the button.]
[Commercials]
[SOL]
[Same as before. After another long pause, Crow sneezes.]
Tom: CROW!
Crow: Sorry, sorry!
Mike: Now our eternal still life is ruined!
Crow: Look, I said I'm sorry!
Tom: We went to all that trouble of setting it up....
Crow: Well, it's not *my* fault somebody smells like an aardvark.
Tom: Hey! Who smells like an aardvark?
Crow: What, can't you guess?
Tom: Why, you little--
[The two fall on each other, battling away.]
Gypsy: I've, uh, got stuff to do.
Mike: OK, you go ahead Gypsy.
[Mads' light flashes as Gypsy zips off the screen. Mike taps it.]
Mike: Oh hey Pearl; what's up?
[Cut to Castle Forrester. A small stage is set up to the left, which
contains a stool on which Observer, who looks incredibly bored, is
sitting. Above him hangs a large sign, reading "PALMS READ". Next to
the stage, further back in the room, is a large, cheap-looking cage
which is rather ill-lit. A sign hangs above that one, too, reading
"SASQUATCH". A few extras wearing khakis are wandering around; they
approach the cage and, predictably enough, Bobo leaps to the front,
"roaring" as only he can do. He's wearing tattered shorts, a la "The
Incredible Hulk". The extras, surprised, jump back a bit. Pearl
comes into the frame, right in front of the camera, and leans in.]
Pearl: Can't talk now, Nelson; we've opened up Castle Forrester as a
Museum of Oddities. I'm charging ten bucks a head for these
rubes to walk through the place and oggle! I'm making a
*fortune*!
Observer: Pearl, do I really have to sit here and--
Pearl: [in his direction] YEEES, you do, Brain Guy! [to the SOL] I've
got a beautiful little Usenet post for you, Mikhael, entitled,
"James Bond is your real life enemy". Enjoy! Brain Guy?
Observer: Are you *sure* I have to--
Pearl: LOOK, just send Mike his posting or I'll fry up your brain in a
light wine sauce, all right?
[Brain Guy mental-sound-thingie. Cut to SOL. Standard chaos.]
All: We've got Usenet siiiiiign!
1...2...3...4...5...6
> Subject: Geeks-- James Bond is your real life enemy
> From: Ben Mann <buck...@concentric.net>
Tom: New, from Bandai! The Ben Man action figure!
Mike: Ben Man car, Ben Man playset, and Ben Man action figure sold
separately.
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.james-bond
>
> CAVEAT: the following is NOT part of a desparate search for an
> argument,
Tom: hehehe, *sure* it isn't.
Mike: Why is it that people who want to start an argument always seem to
start out by insisting that they *don't* want to start an argument?
> it's merely an attempt to point out the strangeness in the
> relationship between James Bond fans and James Bond.
Crow: Yeah, James Bond doesn't really like it when his fans call him up and
stuff. Y'know, him being real and all.
> I really am a
> former fan; there must be at least a couple of people here who remember
> me.
All: No.
> If I were merely looking for trouble, I would've written a lot less.
Tom: Oh, well that makes sen--huh?
> Anyway, I'm a geek.
Mike: I can believe that.
> I used to be a James Bond fan until I realized he
> was exactly the kind of person I hate,
Tom: Woah, quite a turnaround there.
Mike: I used to like Fred, then one day realized I despised him with a deep
passion.
Crow: I hate the heat! I hate the heat with a hot, hot passion!
Tom: Now that's obscure.
> he's my archnemesis . . . yep,
> I'm just like all those cheap villians.
Crow: Nope, you're just a villain.
> They're geeks with inferiority
> complexes too, but if you ask me that beats the hell out of being a
> suave charming seductive predatory JERK.
Tom: Woah! Watch that capitalization there, son!
> James Bond is your eighth grade
> nightmare, he is the reason all the girls ignore or ignored you.
Mike: Hmmm, I think somebody's projecting here, guys....
> James
> Bond is not a ladies man,
Crow: Tell that to the eight million ladies who've slept with him, man!
> he is the antithesis of a real ladies man; he
> just uses women. He's no better than the college football players who
> rape sorority girls.
Mike: "Rape, noun: to force sex on another." Now, when exactly did James
Bond force any woman to have sex with him?
Crow: But then Ben would be making *sense*.
Mike: Ahhh, true.
> I'm glad the only women he ever really loved died.
Tom: Woah! Who's getting a little dark?
> He deserved it, because his existance is dedicated to seducing women
Mike: Yeah, all that spy stuff is just a ruse!
> away from guys (geeks) who aren't suave and charming, but who actually
> have good personalities, unlike him, a jerk who only wants sex and
> thrills.
Tom: Welcome once again to Run-On Sentence Theater.
Crow: Eh, this isn't so bad.
> He has ruined so much love, he doesn't deserve any until he
> pays.
Crow: ...that $50 parking ticket! Yes, he must pay!
> Yes, I know he's somewhat different in the original books, which I
> used to read too. But I can't read the books anymore, they've been too
> soured by the films.
Mike: OK, so in this guy's universe, a bad movie makes the book bad?
Crow: Looks like it.
> "So it's fantasy for geeks," you may tell me. "It's escapism." Maybe.
Tom: NOT!
> But if you've ever had a friendship with a girl you loved, who wasn't
> attracted to you since you were a geek,
Mike: Um, isn't being unattractive to girls *part* of being a geek?
Crow: Well, that depends on your definition of "geek," Mike. Some say...
Mike: Just--drop it, OK?
Crow: OK, OK.
> fall apart because she WAS
> attracted to a guy who was really slick and predatory and horny like
> James Bond, you'd see really fast that while geeks like you are reading
> James Bond novels and posting to alt.fan.james-bond (as I used to)
Crow: Not posting there any more, though. Nope. Not me.
> and
> watching _OHMSS_ for the eighth time,
Tom: [in a trance] Ohhhhhmmmmmmmmmss...ohhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmss....
> guys like James Bond are ensuring
> that you remain lonely and isolated. I know geeks look up to James Bond
> because he's an expert in the game of society.
Crow: Yeah, *nobody* likes Bond because he's suave, or uses all those
gadgets, or outwits the bad guys, or has witty dialogue, or because
of the sex scenes.
Tom: *Especially* not the sex scenes.
> But maybe they should
> stop looking up to experts of that "game" and try to overthrow them, to
> reshape society into one that is not a game, not so superficial and
> shallow, one that has room for geeks and doesn't hate, resent, and scar
> them. People like James Bond do that.
Mike: Yeah, you know, James Bond *hates* Q.
Tom: Oooh, good one!
> James Bond must go; he must die.
> He represents so much that I hate. Freaks, bohemians, nerds
Tom: ...lend me your ears!
> -- kill James
> Bond.
> So I don't fantasize about being James Bond anymore. I fantasize about
> killing him.
Mike: Woah! Slow down there, tiger!
Crow: So this guy wants to kill a fictional character? Give me a break!
Tom: Not only that, he *fantasizes* about it.
> And everyone like him. I'll wear my spy-style trenchcoat
> and be an assassin just like in one of those stupid movies, except I'll
> be the one wearing Buddy Holly Glasses and seventies clothes from
> Goodwill, the one who's really pale from constantly slumping around his
> bedroom reading John le Carre (NOT Ian Fleming), and whose eyes behind
> the glasses are red from crying about the loneliness and heartbreak
> caused by guys like James Bond every day as they play life and love like
> a game to be won. My hair won't be suavely slicked back, it'll be all
> tangled in my face in a possessed early-beatles cut.
Tom: This guy is painting such a lovely image.
[Mike makes gagging sounds.]
> This is what I look
> like; I'll be searching the world for any man who looks like someone in
> a Versace advert. Like James Bond. Like a jock. Like the Aryamerican sex
> machines in Seventeen magazine. Like the cool kids in middle school.
> Like a young hotshot businessman. All these men are James Bond, all of
> them are predators, all of them are hotshots. All of them must die.
Tom: OK, so any jock, model for Seventeen, cool middle school kid, or
young businessman deserves to die?
Crow: Looks like it!
Mike: Yup.
> I
> pull the gun out of my coat and smile . . . You'll recognize me there,
> I'm a freak.
[All nod vigorously]
> Yes, I'm the type who walks into eighth grade and kills his whole
> class.
Crow: Oh, now *there's* a group to identify with.
> But don't worry! I won't. I'm too smart to.
Mike: Even though I just said I'm just like them.
Tom: And I think they should die. Along with a quarter of the American
population.
Crow: And I just borrowed my parent's gun. No, that has nothing to do
with it.
> They kill themselves
> eventually, and they kill the thing they love eventually (they become
> numbers just like Bond),
Crow: I am not a number! I am a free man!
Mike: That was too easy.
> but I don't kill, I'm too smart.
Mike: As we can see from this post.
> Now James
> Bond, he kills every day.
Tom: [Perot] Y'see, now, James Bond, y'see, he kills every day, now.
> In that sense he does represent the angry
> young geek's fantasy, but his killing isn't often motivated by hatred.
Tom: I'm getting confused....
Mike: *Getting*?
> But it's easy, and everyone knows it's not easy to walk into lunch and
> fire away at the cool kids' table. That's the only thing geeks have to
> admire in James Bond. His ease in killing.
Crow: Oh yeah, *everyone* admires how James Bond kills people.
> I'd like to kill him just as
> easily, but I'd have more fun.
Tom: Killing's so much fun! Woohoo!
> Except that I won't kill him literally. I
> wanna kill his empire of cool. Die, [BEEP]
Mike: What was that?
Tom: I guess we have a censor for Usenet posts, too.
Mike: Well then where was it for all those other dumb posts?!
Tom: I don't know!
> . . . let everyone see
> how you are, really . . . mainstream winning smile action figure myths
> lie tux demigods lie killed by truth and beauty.
Mike: Oh no! He's turning Beatnik! Ruuun!
[All exit the theater]
6...5...4...3...2...<chunk>
Mike: Whew! That was a bad one.
Crow: Yeah, you said it Mike!
Tom: I dunno, I kinda agreed with it.
Mike: Exactly! I--HUH!?
Tom: Well, you know, James Bond does glorify killing.
Mike: Well, yeah but--
Tom: And he has been kinda sneering and sexist sometimes.
Crow: Sometimes, but--
Tom: And he *is* an action figure.
Mike: Uhhh, yeah.
Crow: Besides, Tom, it's escapism! Everybody knows you can't blow up a
building with one explosive, or seduce every woman on the planet, or
escape from death traps with a Bic pen!
Tom: You can't?
[Pause; the Mads' light flashes]
Mike: We'll talk about this later. How goes the Museum of Oddities,
Pearl?
[Cut to Castle Forrester. The cave is broken open, and Bobo is lying on
a stretcher while paramedics are preparing to take him away. Several of
the extras are grouped around a policeman, who seems to be taking evidence.
Observer is standing behind the stool and looking pained, while Pearl is
where she was before.]
Pearl: <sigh> Well, as *usual*, Bobo had to go and screw things up. He
got a little...overenthusiastic and burst out of the cage. To be
fair, how was *he* supposed to know that one guy was carrying a
baseball bat?
Bobo: Ouchie....
Observer: Serves you right.
[One of the medics leans over Bobo.]
Medic: Where do you hurt?
Bobo: My arms...my legs...my head...and, uh....
Medic: What?
Bobo: [somewhat embarrased] Could you get the bat out, please?
[All except Bobo turn to look at the camera simultaneously.]
All: Ewwwwww!
<FWOOOOSH>
Bobo: What?
Credits, etc. This is a work of fiction. I do not own any of the
characters used in this work; they are owned by Best Brains, Inc. Feel
free to distribute this work, provided it is not modified. This MiSTing
dedicated to my Mom. Keep circulating those posts!
<TWANG>
> Anyway, I'm a geek.
Quoth
>ERA: PEARL
>
>This is my first "real" MiSTing (the other was quite brief, and put together
>in about half an hour's time). It also includes actual host segments!
>Comments and criticisms greatly encouraged; gur...@wizard.net is the best
>way to get in touch. Thanks, and enjoy!
I did! As a James Bond fan, and a geek, and a GIRL (the horror! The
Horror!) I thoroughly enjoyed your MSTing. Please do more!