"The Wire" on HBO

http://images.webster-dictionary.org/dict/110/041516-shylock.gif

lol

Soon, Shystyville CDs with titles like “Pure Shit” became evidence of not just the conspiracy but the crimes themselves, with prosecutors entering into the record lyrics like these:

I watch ya brains fly all over on the bitch next to you
Homeboy it’s up to you I could put this pup to you
Then to pumpin’ you up like a innertube
Send shots that’ll pump up the end of you
Leave you all fat and bloated you know I keep
the Mac loaded then I like ta clack rollin’
That’s why Bo and Weez on lock now and every day on lock down
Niggas getting shot down for runnin’ they mouth clown
Tell me how it feels with a gun in ya mouth now

Prosecutors alleged that the “bitch next to you” was Lisa Brown, who was sitting beside Oliver McCaffity when he was shot through the head, that a “pup” is slang for the largecaliber revolver used in the killing, that the “Bo” on “lock now” was the imprisoned Willie “Bo” Mitchell, and that the reference to “Niggas getting shot for runnin’ they mouth” amounted to witness intimidation. Faced with the prospect of an all-white jury hearing this music in the courtroom, the defense lawyers objected on the grounds that lots of songs have lyrics that “proudly refer to violent retaliation,” offering by way of example country star Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).”

recently saw Clockers for the first time...not only does it feel very Wire-y (wiry?) in retrospect, but bird and wee-bay are in there.

Richard Price cribbed a good amount of dialogue for the Wire from Clockers, mostly stuff that didn't get used in the film, like "big paws on a puppy."

Not like this is official or anything, and I'm not getting my hopes up yet, but:

At the EMA (Entertainment Merchant Association) show this week, being held at the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, HBO Video and Warner Home Video have announced that The Wire - The Complete Series is coming to DVD later this year.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Wire-The-Complete-Series/9915

I watched the first three episodes of Season Five (spoiler alert).

Although newsroom and City Hall politics are as well-drawn as usual, for the first time I sensed that Simon's cynicism was beginning to curdle his ideas. Bunk, the newspaper editor, McNulty – all utter some variation on the line "life sucks and we can't get shit done." And, so far, the guy who plays the executive editor is a buffoon.

if you'd been through what they'd been through wouldn't you feel basically the same?

though i don't see gus as being very cynical. he's the fire under the butt of the reporters under him and he still wants to chase down good stories - in fact he still believes good work is possible to such an extent that he goes right up against the exec editor about it

the problem w/ Gus wasn't cynicism, it was his saintliness

there are people like that, though!

Funny you mention this – not two minutes ago the interim associate dean of the journalism school left my office decrying the state of the industry and how we (Student Media) can help sharpen the kids' skills in the new world.

I don't have a problem with the conflicts – several friends have accepted buyouts or been laid off in the last two weeks as major newspaper conglomerates panic – but the obvious manner in which they've unfolded is disappointing.

Episodes 4-6 tomorrow.

"executive editor is a buffoon" = Whiting, not Haynes, right?

lol I am in a race with Alfred now to finish season 5, I just watched 1-3 myself last night

and btw y'all Regional Affairs Editor Rebecca Corbett played by Kara Quick got straight ROBBED in the wire babez poll yes i said ROBBED that woman was ROBBED

I think I'm going to like this season, it's got a lot more melodrama dominoes lining up, and nobody's learning any lessons. By the final episode I fully expect Baltimore to be razed to the ground. No spoilers please.

I like the return of McNulty The Rake myself.

there was a wire babez poll and i missed it??!!/ :(

going by some journalism people I know, Gus seems pretty realistic actually. I don't think he's saintly it's just there is a v strict code of ethics and if you take it seriously, you take it seriously. god knows what goes on in "newsrooms" for those talking heads pundit shows, though.

Will be getting the first two discs of S5 tomorrow. Excited.

WIRE BABEZ POLL
WIRE BABEZ POLL (dudes edition)

I thought all the Sun stuff was pretty OTM actually. Particularly the speech about 'doing more with less', I have been on the receiving end of the exact same speech from more than one publishing bigwig in the last few years. LOVE Gus.

What's going on in South Florida

i imagine similar backroom conversations going on in the la weekly and l.a. times offices since those papers have gone from being reasonable to just about the most dire rags i've ever read.

the Sun just did another round of buyouts a month or so back, i know some people over there that survived the cuts but are still pretty much on their toes because they know it could be them next year or the year after, etc.

I'm sure there are a lot of Guses in the newspaper industry - but there are a lot of saintly, dedicated people in all the professions the Wire covered (except for drug dealers, presumably). But they were never portrayed in the same urgent "Love This Man" way as Gus.

Except maybe Lester ('til the last season), but he was always more jaded and less earnest.

i think the compression hurt the fifth season more than the direct cynicism. cut two hours out of any other storyline and it would have seemed too broad and obvious too: mouzone vs omar, marlo's megalomania, the sobotkas and the greeks, the political campaigns, etc. streetwise old school-reporters vs. their clueless ivy-league neoliberal bosses is a bit romantic yes but not completely unreal.

hah wrong hyphen there

in his whole blog jihad a few months ago Simon aggressively argued against the perception that they had to cut anything out or shorten the storyline in season 5, that they were fine with the shorter order of episodes. it definitely feels too fast and too compressed to have 10 episodes instead of 12 or 13 like usual, though.

hmm, well, the turn towards fakery (lol no spoilers) as a solution to the budget & morale crisis is so sudden and wholly uncharacteristic, maybe we all pin that turn on the shorter series when really it's just not entirely believable.

gah i'm totally incoherent: maybe simon is being defensive, but on the other hand ppl are blaming the fifth season's problems on the "rushed pace" when really they're just problems, period.

i have totally contradicted myself in the space of half an hour, jesus

It didn't help that the last 3 or so episodes were the best of the season, so there was kind of a bitter "aww it was just getting good" feeling when it all ended quicker than it usually does.

The McNutty/bad reporter storylines are half-baked, but I basically loved everything else about S5.

and btw y'all Regional Affairs Editor Rebecca Corbett played by Kara Quick got straight ROBBED in the wire babez poll yes i said ROBBED that woman was ROBBED

Not really since TITTAYS!!! but the overall thrust of your point stands.

Almost all of S5 felt hollow in some way -- could be that the McNutty/bad reporter thing rippled out through all the different INSTITUTIONS, as is the wont of the show.

I finished S5. It ruled.
I don't understand anybody who complains about the wire except for the point that it should have lasted longer.

My only complaint about the Wire right now is that Netflix hasn't started to send me season 5 yet and tells me this instead:

IMPORTANT: Your DVD Shipments Have Likely Been Delayed
Click here to learn more

We’re sorry to report that since Tuesday we’ve been experiencing issues with our shipping system, so many of you have not received DVDs in a timely manner and many of you have not received emails letting you know we got a DVD back from you.

and btw y'all Regional Affairs Editor Rebecca Corbett played by Kara Quick got straight ROBBED in the wire babez poll yes i said ROBBED that woman was ROBBED

^^^ this is truth bomb supreme

except wait til you see the french girl who works at the bank

I got mine before the Netflix problem, joygoat.

(Possible spoilers if people are still watching the early seasons}
Can I just get something off my chest that never sat right with me, and had very far-reaching consequences? It just didn't make sense that Stringer would try to get rid of Mousone by telling Omar that he'd been responsible for torturing Brandon. Stringer is a smart man, surely he knew that Omar might check first? And why didn't he just put the word out rather than telling Omar face-to-face and thus making it really bloody easy for Mousone to find out that it was String who'd tried to set him up? It just seemed a really crass and cack-handed stunt to try to pull.

Smart people are rarely smart 100% of the time

I assumed that Stringer didn't know Omar that well and assumed he'd just kill Mouzone no matter what, like Stringer would have. Omar has his code and all that, which is why Bunk, who knew Omar better, realized he wasn't the one who killed the civilian delivery woman in the liquor store.

also FUCK YOU NETFLIX I should be watching S5 tonight.

he problem w/ Gus wasn't cynicism, it was his saintliness

-- milo z, Wednesday, August 13, 2008 10:13 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

yeah, this was annoying, even if guys like him actually exist. seemed to typify simon's ur-reporter, and he wouldn't get off his jock.

also, the mcnulty/reporter storyline got so o_O at times that it pulled me out a little bit. still, <3 this show 4 life

it was all worth it for the closed-door bit at the end when Jimmy confronts Templeton. "No, I'm a joke. And so are you."

i have never seen this show (more like consciously avoided it in case i got sucked in mid-run) and i'm just about to start marathon-ing. excited!

xp to Meg:

my feeling on that whole situation was that Stringer didn't necessarily think that Omar would take down Mouzone (who was a bad-ass hired hitman and all). Even if that was his plan (my memory is hazy on the specific scene), it couldn't have hurt to throw two people who were giving him problems up against each other. then combine that rationale with what joygoat said: Stringer and Avon always underestimated Omar and also didn't know anything about his code. I have some problems with certain scenes in the show, but that one was okay by me. although the whole Brother Mouzone character itself was a tad Tarantino, or something, to me.

i own all the other seasons of the wire, but i am back and forth about whether or not I should buy S5. re-watching the whole McNulty thing seems really unappealing.

lol yeah nevermind dookie and michael and marlo, watching mcnulty be a jerk and lie about stuff is just too much

'Wire' actress 'Snoop' arrested on drug charges

By Justin Fenton | Sun reporter
3:56 PM EDT, August 21, 2008

Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, who played a cold-blooded hit woman of the same name on the HBO series "The Wire," was arrested on minor drug charges today after police entered her home to serve a warrant related to her role as a witness in a murder trial.

Members of the homicide operation unit forced entry into the 28-year-old's Northeast Baltimore home this morning to serve a warrant allowing police to detain her until the Sept. 16 murder trial of Steven James Lashley.

Once inside the home, police found two cigars containing suspected marijuana in an upstairs bedroom, and "loose plant material" was recovered from the top of a kitchen cabinet. She was charged with one count of drug possession and was being held at the Central Booking and Intake Center.

Authorities say Pearson watched Lashley stab three men, killing one, after an argument that began outside New York Fried Chicken on The Block in the fall of 2005, and she is expected to be called as a witness during the trial.

Pearson's troubled past served as the basis for her recent memoir, Grace After Midnight. Born prematurely and addicted to crack, she fell in with some of East Baltimore's biggest drug runners before she hit her teens.

She pleaded guilty in 1996 to second-degree murder for fatally shooting Okia "Kia" Toomer during a fight in Baltimore and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Upon her release, she re-entered the world of drug dealing before being spotted in a nightclub and eventually cast on "The Wire," the gritty crime drama set in Baltimore.

She said the opportunity was the catalyst that helped turn her life around and has spoken about the difficulties of leaving her past behind, including a recent appearance on "Larry King Live" that was broadcast from the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women, where she served time.

"I'm tired of crying. God gave me this blessing for a reason, and I want to see what it is," said Pearson during an appearance at the Stoop Storytelling series. "Hopefully, I can give somebody else some hope, like 'The Wire' gave me hope."

I bet her hair looked good.

This makes me sad...

Oh, so I finished Season Five last night! Pretty good ending.