Day 043: He Was The Man Now, Dogg

If you were to ask me what my favorite James Bond film is, I’d immediately say, “From Russia With Love”. I’d come up with some half-witted reasons, like how it has everything you could ask for in a Bond film. It’s really well paced. It doesn’t go off the rails [quite literally, because it takes place on a train]. But then if you asked me, “Seriously, what’s your favorite Bond movie?”. I would hang my head, take a second to admit it and say “A View To A Kill”. Sean Connery was the original James Bond and a damn good one at that. But when I think of James Bond, it’s always Roger Moore. He was Bond for the longest time and he never took himself too seriously.

I never saw The Untouchables. I know. I know. You’ve been telling me to watch it for 20 years. I swear I’ll get to it someday. I outwardly hate Indiana Jones. I tried watching The Last Crusade once and it was pure pain. I haven’t peeped any Tom Clancy movies. Every time I think about watching The Hunt For The Red October, I think of all the other things I could do for 2 hours. Rising Sun looks like a badass flick, but nope, never seen it. I watched The Rock quite a bit when I was a kid, but my only memory of it is being mortified of Nicholas Cage’s naked body behind an acoustic guitar. My best friend always suggested that we watch “The Edge”, but we never did and after further recollection, Sir Connery wasn’t even in that movie. It was Anthony Hopkins. Oof.

It’s safe to say that I don’t have many childhood memories of Sean Connery. Nor do I have many adult memories. Some teenage memories hold, but all of those are out of context. I’m talking, of course, about the fake Sean Connery character on Celebrity Jeopardy. And there was also one of the original Internet Memes, You’re The Man Now Dog. Holy crap, I watched that way too much. I’d let it play for hour loops. I can’t tell you how many teachers I annoyed with it. I made all of them regret giving me internet access. It seems crude and dumb now, but YTMND was a trail blazer in internet comedy. And I’m sure if Sir Connery knew about it, he’d be rather upset.

He was one of those special actors. One that you really don’t need to know well, or even like, to respect. When you heard his name, you knew it was attached to a film that most people regard as “good”. But because of the nature of his work, he definitely flew under some people’s radar. So when I told Rachel about his passing away this morning, she didn’t know who he was. And I couldn’t come up with a good answer. He was a name. He was a face and the face had a voice. He was James Bond? He was..he was…

He was the man now, dogg.

– TeeCoZee