"The Wire" on HBO

My concern would be the length of the show. Do you have enough time? To get to the meat of the show and it's "message" (such as there is one), you perhaps need to watch the whole of season 1, if not right up to the end of season 3.

Others may disagree?

No so concerned about length - it's well-written enough that there are short and long games going on all the time. I don't think getting to the end of season 1 would be a drag at all, though season 2 is a pretty abrupt change and I wonder how that'd play out with your audience?

More basic concern: they might already have seen it?

I mentioned it to a group of about five kids yesterday and they had never even heard of it!

As far as whether or not I have enough time, I see most of these kids nearly every day so I think that we could definitely work through at least season one and they could always watch the rest on their own if they're interested.

I think I'm going to run it by my boss and co-worker and see what they think. While I know that I will learn a lot, my major concern is that they learn something as well. I want this to be a productive thing of everyone and not just me. I also need to figure out how to frame it so that it doesn't come off as presumptuous of me to think this is something that they'll identify with. Well, I guess it is presumptuous but that doesn't make it wrong. I worry that they might construe the idea as offensive somehow but that's probably more indicative of self-consciousness than anything else at this point.

I'm still sort of navigating how to interact with these dudes since my life experiences have been so wildly differently from theirs. We are bonding though so that's something. This week ended with me being teased in a boys pulling the girls' pigtails sorta way and then getting a huge bear hug from one of my participants and being told by another that I was his new favorite person at the org so I'm off to a pretty good start.

it has some n00dz in it though :)

Hmmmmmm. I don't think that would be an issue. There really isn't much that doesn't get seen or discussed around the center. They'd all be at least 18 and at least 3/4 of them already have kids so hopefully they'll be able to handle a little n00dity.

I also think that having my co-worker who has known a lot of these kids since they were born and who lived the life himself present during the discussion etc. is key if I'm going to pull this off.

haha yeah i figured xp

if it helps then maybe me and shakey mo could come by and talk to them about the show and living in tough neighborhoods.

lollll

ask them if the corner pays better than the foot locker

i can tell them about what's in the game. sometimes you want a galaxy to be one way, but it's the other way.

ha. Had p interesting convo with one of my guys the other day about why he should stay in a transistional work program we run in which he makes $8 an hour rather than return to dealing where he was making hundreds a night so yeah, I think I know what they'd say to that one.

my major concern is that they learn something as well

They will learn how to play chess, and if they're sharp, that you can reduce corner life to chess analogies.

Bit more seriously, I wonder if the repercussions that we see in the show aren't too back-loaded to the later seasons (I'm avoiding specifics to try to avoid spoiling) -- it kind of takes a while for the overriding thesis to really come through, IMO.

That aside, whether or not the corner scenes grab them, I think that seeing all the details of police work would be fascinating, if somewhat overwhelming (which was my reaction to the show the first time I watched it).

Lol @ forks' post.

if you do this ENBB you should totally start a thread about how it goes!

Oh that's a good idea. I definitely will.

yeah - I'd be really curious to hear about how it goes, if you choose to do it.

man season 3 kinda drags doesn't it

u kinda drag! >:[

:-O

=v=

I thought the same half way through it. Wait for the final three or so episodes. Seriously, it all comes together in an immense fucking way.

alright I'mma stick with it

http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2008/10/michael%20jackson%20gif.gif

btw - mentioned this to my boss and co-worker and they were pretty receptive. Then tonight I was driving one of our participants home (who incidentally had gotten out of jail literally one hour earlier) and asked what he thought. Having seen a couple of episodes already, he thought it would be a great idea so we'll see!

nice!

and don't worry dyao - season 3 pays off big time!it's me fav!

this sounds like a dope idea, i'm excited to hear it's being well-received.

i smell a blog-to-book deal brewin'!
"On The Wire: Teenagers at Risk Explore the World of THE WIRE"

if it helps then maybe me and shakey mo could come by and talk to them about the show and living in tough neighborhoods.

lolololol

sounds awesome Erica, very curious to hear how this goes

also I would just like to say it sounds like you are doing good valuable work, good on ya

<3 slim charles

where are you at w/it so far, dyao?

Aw hey Shakey thanks - that's really sweet of you to say. I have to admit that it's the first job I've ever had that I actually care about and I really love it so far. It's really challenging (cried for the first time @ work this week, got called a white cunt which was bound to happen eventually and had my first participant get arrested and locked up) but also really fun and interesting. Part of that is the nature of the place/population we deal with but also the fact that both they and I know that our backgrounds are wildly different. That is the part that's proving the most interesting. Most of the am extremely skeptical of me at first (unsurprisingly) but the more we learn about one another and the closer we get the more trusting they become.

Watching this all unfold is really interesting. One thing that I should have anticipated but didn't is that the guys have been so much easier to bond and interact with than the girls so far. Because I'm used to working with teen girls I kind of expected the opposite but that hasn't been the case so far. I think it's partly because a lot of them have a sense of ownership over the joint and the male participants and for them it's like - Who the hell is this non-ugly white bitch coming in here all of sudden? - and also a natural sense of competition that often happens with girls.

Also, the comments so far have been pretty amazing. The other day I got told that I look like a "white Halle Berry with a dorky smile". That was pretty awesome. One of them also told me that he thought I was a lesbian at first because of my hair but that that was ok because he loves lesbians and is sure I get hit on plenty. lol. They also all think I'm 23-25 which is pretty awesome tbh but I'm making a point to tell them my actually age because that does bring some sort of weight in terms of authority which is def needed at times. Also got told that I looked like "a punk rock" and blew their minds when they realized that I actually knew some shit about music other than rock. lol.

Sorry to hijack Wire thread. I come home every day with like a million stories and since it's all still very new for me I'm really excited about it all.

oh shit - I didn't realize that I'd written quite that much. ack. sorry!!!!

i think i know exactly what dyao just watched!
xposts!

the "day of the jackal shit" episode?

i think he's talking about Slim's speech in the last episode. about going to war over Sringer's death - "if it's a lie then we fight on that lie. but we gotta fight." etc

No, tell your stories Erica - it's all great stuff

^ i second that

yeah - Erica - go for it!

^

Hmmm. Maybe I will start a 77 thread later tonight. It seems really self-indulgent but if ppl like hearing about it then maybe I should just go for it. Plus there's a lot of stuff I'm still working through in regards to the whole thing so it would be interesting to hear ppls thought.

^^^ would bookmark

Why not make it an ILE thread? (I.e. I'm not cool enough for 77.)

Or hell, a book.

and I'm clearly not cool enough to know about 77 - what's going on?

would also bookmark

That thread would make me finally beg for a 77 invite tbh.

Oh sry I honestly thought that most regulars were on 77 by this point. Hmmmm. I could make it an ILE thread but since it's my job and all I would feel more comfortable on 77 since it's a little more private. I don't know. I mean, I would never post anything seriously personal or confidential about my participants so maybe it doesn't matter?

Let me in on this 77 secret. Is it the sort of thing Dan Brown would write about?

Ismael, if you have to ask...