Stevie - newer technology makes its mark in subsequent seasons in interesting, sometimes amusing, ways.
― Alba, Thursday, 5 February 2009 12:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Whenever I see the pagers I can't help thinking 30 Rock's Beeper King could have made a killing in Baltimore.
"Excuse me, I 'm expecting a call - from 1983."
― Stevie T, Thursday, 5 February 2009 12:19 (fifteen years ago) link
haha
― special guest stars mark bronson, Thursday, 5 February 2009 12:21 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― ☺♑ (joygoat), Thursday, 5 February 2009 15:50 (fifteen years ago) link
and the whole disposable cell phone thing, I imagine
― miss precious perfect (musically), Thursday, 5 February 2009 16:04 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― nabisco, Thursday, 5 February 2009 16:30 (fifteen years ago) link
I guess the combination of those two things is convenient, since pretty much anything will fly
― nabisco, Thursday, 5 February 2009 16:31 (fifteen years ago) link
i always assumed it was the latter viz. the FBI having all the good shit
― i like to fart and i am crazy (gbx), Thursday, 5 February 2009 16:31 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah, also i feel like the diegetic music in season 1 is pretty late '90s?
― horseshoe, Thursday, 5 February 2009 16:32 (fifteen years ago) link
like i feel like i remember black star playing in someone's car+ lucinda williams playing in ronnie's apartment...
― horseshoe, Thursday, 5 February 2009 16:33 (fifteen years ago) link
the credits theme is so lush
― O Supermanchiros (blueski), Thursday, 5 February 2009 16:34 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― O Supermanchiros (blueski), Thursday, 5 February 2009 16:35 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― caek, Thursday, 5 February 2009 17:02 (fifteen years ago) link
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.)
― special guest stars mark bronson, Thursday, 5 February 2009 17:07 (fifteen years ago) link
that is true.
― caek, Thursday, 5 February 2009 17:08 (fifteen years ago) link
The technology speeds up pretty rapidly by the second series, all that GPS stuff for instance.
― Holy Suffering Gobi Desert Clit Nun (Matt DC), Thursday, 5 February 2009 17:09 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Bianca Jagger (jaymc), Thursday, 5 February 2009 17:10 (fifteen years ago) link
sorry not Omar i meant Avon
― O Supermanchiros (blueski), Thursday, 5 February 2009 17:16 (fifteen years ago) link
haha yes when everybody was playing 'the blueprint' xp
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 5 February 2009 17:19 (fifteen years ago) link
yay - just got the box set in the mail!
― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Thursday, 5 February 2009 18:10 (fifteen years ago) link
― 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
― LOOK WHAT I BRING TO THE TABLA (deej), Thursday, 5 February 2009 23:54 (fifteen years ago) link
not to generalize about projects radio but yknow
lol yeah that makes sense. lucinda williams seems in character for ronnie, though.
― horseshoe, Friday, 6 February 2009 00:25 (fifteen years ago) link
i was gonna say that. that's one reason she was character i would least like to kiw
― straight b*tch (harbl), Friday, 6 February 2009 00:28 (fifteen years ago) link
i bet cedric turned her onto some good shit tho
― John Hyman (misspelled intentionally) (omar little), Friday, 6 February 2009 00:29 (fifteen years ago) link
cedric is listening to coltrane in at least one scene iirc
― autosocratic asphyxiation (Hurting 2), Friday, 6 February 2009 02:41 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― mehlt, Friday, 6 February 2009 03:51 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― some dude, Friday, 6 February 2009 03:55 (fifteen years ago) link
And I still think it's great that Chris went around asking about Baltimore club music to scout out who the New Yorkers were.
― mehlt, Friday, 6 February 2009 04:01 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― leavethecapital, Tuesday, 10 February 2009 23:44 (fifteen years ago) link
madonna.
― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Wednesday, 11 February 2009 04:06 (fifteen years ago) link
City police raid turns up 90 pounds of cocaine
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.ci.bust21feb21,0,790170.story
― eman, Saturday, 21 February 2009 17:06 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― meme economist (special guest stars mark bronson), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 13:42 (fifteen years ago) link
wow, sounds quite face palm.
― Bone Thugs-N-Harmony ft Phil Collins (jim), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 13:44 (fifteen years ago) link
That article is kind of dumb.
"It’s harder, however, to find much in the way of first-handtestimony from those who have grown up in the type of environmentfeatured on The Wire, or even to garner much reliableevidence about how much popularity it enjoys amongsuch demographic groups."
lol internet research
― Bonobos in Paneradise (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 13:49 (fifteen years ago) link
"I didn't see one blog, nor even a single tweet, that matched real life to what was depicted in the show!"
― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 13:52 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Bonobos in Paneradise (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 13:53 (fifteen years ago) link
freakanomics should show oz to some actual aryan nation lifers.
― meme economist (special guest stars mark bronson), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 13:54 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― я рилли (harbl), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 13:58 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Easter Time / Chocolate Time (joygoat), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 15:52 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― candy corn for lunch and dinner (sarahel), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 22:07 (fifteen years ago) link
Wait, what kind of radio format is "alt rock for women," exactly?
― nabisco, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 22:08 (fifteen years ago) link
All I can imagine is "all Wallflowers, all the time," and the "for women" part is a bit confusing even then
― nabisco, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 22:09 (fifteen years ago) link
Sarah McLaughlinAni DiFranco
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 22:16 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.filmquarterly.org/index2.htmlbasically 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.
― candy corn for lunch and dinner (sarahel), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 22:26 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― ogmor, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 22:26 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― candy corn for lunch and dinner (sarahel), Tuesday, 24 February 2009 22:36 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― leavethecapital, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 23:48 (fifteen years ago) link