"The Wire" on HBO

The only thing that gave me any sense of when episodes were filmed was brand names that they had for the heroin they were selling - WMD, Pandemic, Bin Laden, Brokeback, etc.

and the whole disposable cell phone thing, I imagine

Yeah, I was really curious about the police technology in the first season -- I couldn't decide how much it was dated due to Simon's era and how much it was pointedly dated to point up that the department is aging, technologically behind, under-endowed, etc.

I guess the combination of those two things is convenient, since pretty much anything will fly

i always assumed it was the latter viz. the FBI having all the good shit

yeah, also i feel like the diegetic music in season 1 is pretty late '90s?

like i feel like i remember black star playing in someone's car+ lucinda williams playing in ronnie's apartment...

the credits theme is so lush

in one episode Omar is jamming Spearhead 'Rok The Nation (Tuhoe Nation Mix)' in his jeep and i was thinking no way would this guy be down with Franti ha ha

there's also that moment in season 2 when ziggy and nikky are searching on MSN for what potassium permanganate is used for and nikky is like, "so you type in questions and it just tells you the answer" and ziggy explains the internet? this seemed like a thing about how some communities were being left behind, rather than exposition for the benefit of the audience or a product of the books/research be old.

sorry, that was illiterate. you get it though.

obviously it's not 'actually' set in the 80s -- think the first ep mentions 9/11 -- but it is just odd how much stuff, even little stuff, like herc blasting 'theme from shaft', is in the (c. 1990) book. moreover the show 'homicide' is way more NINETIES than 'the wire' was NOUGHTIES if you see what i mean. (i think i just mean they had more arguments about political correctness in 'homicide' really.)

that is true.

The technology speeds up pretty rapidly by the second series, all that GPS stuff for instance.

I only watched the show starting about a year ago, so it was fun to be able to tell when the episode was originally aired by the rap songs playing out of cars.

sorry not Omar i meant Avon

haha yes when everybody was playing 'the blueprint' xp

yay - just got the box set in the mail!

like i feel like i remember black star playing in someone's car+ lucinda williams playing in ronnie's apartment...

― horseshoe, Thursday, February 5, 2009 10:33 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think this was more an issue of them not really thinking out the music programming or letting the actors throw their favorite cds on ... at one point the guys in the pit are bumping j-live:

http://www.amiright.com/album-covers/images/album-JLive-All-of-the-Above.jpg

who i like fwiw but is definitely not typical projects radio. they became more careful w/ this in the later seasons

not to generalize about projects radio but yknow

lol yeah that makes sense. lucinda williams seems in character for ronnie, though.

i was gonna say that. that's one reason she was character i would least like to kiw

i bet cedric turned her onto some good shit tho

cedric is listening to coltrane in at least one scene iirc

I did hear, though, that David Simon wrote "Homicide" after "It Takes Two" came out, and was drawing from his experience during the time when it was the hit song that summer and purportedly you'd see people dancing to it next to crime scenes and all, which explains why he'd depict early 2000's West Baltimore blasting it in public, for instance. Although I guess they contemporized by season 2.

having spoken to the music supervisor, Blake, yeah, the first couple seasons he wasn't thinking too hard about realistic song choices, so you'd hear like 2 late '90s Mos Def songs in one episode that's ostensibly set in 2002. later on he got better at using contemporary radio hits, and in the last couple seasons, a lot of the local Baltimore artists that ended up on the soundtrack, some of which were getting radio play.

And I still think it's great that Chris went around asking about Baltimore club music to scout out who the New Yorkers were.

While it makes sense that Lester would be a jazz dude, or Butchie love the old school Rn'B, some of the other musical associations were a bit odd to say the least. I swear there's some episode in season one where Prez is listening to a new wave station that sounds like its playlist comes straight from the 1980's. I'd never take Pryzbylewski for an OMD fan.

Gotta wonder what's on Rawls' playlist.

madonna.

City police raid turns up 90 pounds of cocaine

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.ci.bust21feb21,0,790170.story

id be interested to know what US posters made of this:

http://www.filmquarterly.org/index2.html

basically latecomer anglo wire viewer says it isn't real enough/panders to white hbo viewers, citing... the fucking freakonomics blogger in nyt. no mention of it screening on BET i don't think. us racial politics, brit style.

wow, sounds quite face palm.

That article is kind of dumb.

"It’s harder, however, to find much in the way of first-hand
testimony from those who have grown up in the type of environment
featured on The Wire, or even to garner much reliable
evidence about how much popularity it enjoys among
such demographic groups."

lol internet research

"I didn't see one blog, nor even a single tweet, that matched real life to what was depicted in the show!"

Plus he's confusing two unrelated points. Of course viewers who aren't actually from the ghetto get a vicarious thrill from watching the show. The same can be said about any good television or film drama, not to mention a lot of good feature journalism. And this "thrill" has little to do with the question of whether it's actually a realistic portrait or not, but my guess it's by far the closest thing to a realistic portrait of that life television has ever seen.

freakanomics should show oz to some actual aryan nation lifers.

you can read it from the site? i can't see the link.
there is more about how they caught the guy w/ 90 lbs. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-drugseizure0223,0,4786815.story don't put cocaine in the back of your pickup truck, duh

oh, i was looking at the wrong article, sry

I talked to my dad the other day; he and my mom are halfway through the first DVD of season one. This is going to be hilarious.

I swear there's some episode in season one where Prez is listening to a new wave station that sounds like its playlist comes straight from the 1980's. I'd never take Pryzbylewski for an OMD fan.

Gotta wonder what's on Rawls' playlist.

I can see Prez listening to alt rock or an alt rock for women station that would play new wave songs. I could see him liking Elvis Costello.

Rawls: butt rock. BTO "Taking Care of Business" - maybe "Slow Ride" - dude's a bear. Don't think he'd be listening to Madonna, but maybe Judas Priest.

Wait, what kind of radio format is "alt rock for women," exactly?

All I can imagine is "all Wallflowers, all the time," and the "for women" part is a bit confusing even then

Sarah McLaughlin
Ani DiFranco

http://www.filmquarterly.org/index2.html

basically latecomer anglo wire viewer says it isn't real enough/panders to white hbo viewers, citing... the fucking freakonomics blogger in nyt. no mention of it screening on BET i don't think. us racial politics, brit style.

Hmm, the writer doesn't necessarily seem to be saying that it isn't real enough. He seems to be examining the appeal of the show (and the Freakonomics blog series on the show) to white people, whom the writer seems to portray as a monolithic bloc. I went and read the Freakonomics posts, (academic watches the show w/actual black drug dealers and gang dudes) and they confirmed a significant amount of realism/authenticity.

I think the writer's portrayal of white people interested in the show is overly simplistic. I live in Oakland, and regularly see the dealers and junkies, and recent news stories of the Oakland PD could easily make a Wire season storyline. I watched the show, partly for a "inside view" into what I only observe walking or driving by, as well as noting regional differences -- Oakland's drug trade involves more kids on bikes -- probably in relation to a balmier climate and more spread out geography.

Prez is a Johnny Cash man! Or maybe the point is that he turns into one after going through wallflowers purgatory, and that combined with his Hemingway beard redeems him. David Simon clearly loving "The Man Comes Around" closing Generation Kill w/it too.

Wait, what kind of radio format is "alt rock for women," exactly?

In the SF Bay Area, there's a station called "Alice" - that smacks of being a national format - that consists of (based on overhearing it occasionally, advertised artists on station ads and on the masthead of their website) alt-folk-rock, new wave, lighter rock - like Sarah McLachlan, Sting, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews Band, U2, Coldplay. I think their target demographic is college educated white women between 25 - 45.

I live in a rural area and the Wire still rings true, just substitute Oxycontin and Meth for Dope and Coke. Our politicians are notoriously corrupt too. There's a Clay Davis in nearly every little, backwoods town.

In the SF Bay Area, there's a station called "Alice" - that smacks of being a national format - that consists of (based on overhearing it occasionally, advertised artists on station ads and on the masthead of their website) alt-folk-rock, new wave, lighter rock - like Sarah McLachlan, Sting, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews Band, U2, Coldplay. I think their target demographic is college educated white women between 25 - 45.

KFOG, basically.

KFOG is a bit more dudely than Alice - I think KFOG also targets older - like up to age 54. KFOG is radio for baby boomer dad who likes Clapton and sometimes kicks back and smokes weed.

Interesting article on dubbing The Wire into German:
http://blog.babbel.com/the-words-should-roll-out-of-the-mouths-on-the-dubbing-of-the-wire-in-german/