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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, July 07, 2008
Thom Loverro is now blogging...and starts off with this beaut of an interview with writer/producer David Simon.
David Simon: My cousin—and my nemesis in my long-running fantasy league—is a Yankee fan. A vile, smug Yankee fan. He lives in East Rockaway, New York and his soul is sick, sick, sick with Yankee entitlement and arrogance. I pity the b*stard. I do. Anyway, we wanted to film an episode at the stadium and of course the Orioles and the Maryland Stadium Authority were a little bit loath to stage a murder at their pristine gem of a sports complex. So I thought of my cousin and came up with the following:—“What if we kill a Yankee fan?” The Oriole representative we spoke with was intrigued. He thought for a moment, then asked: “Who is the killer?” “Another Yankee fan.” Sold. The trick was then writing a part obnoxious and self-absorbed enough to be a credible New York Yankee devotee—and finding an actor to take the part to the heights of villainy. We did our absolute best. I used many of my cousin’s stock phrases in the dialogue—enough to certify the homage as such. I named the character for my cousin and the victim is one of his best friends. Detective Munch holds up the victim’s Yankee hat at the crime scene and declares that he is uncertain whether such a murder is actually against the Maryland Annotated Code. Benitez and Erickson had cameos because we threw open the opportunity to the team as a whole and they responded. They were both very gracious and patient. We had Munch, who was obsessing with his fantasy baseball squad, inquire with both as to whether Benitez might be in line with some save opportunities. He is then roundly abused by both players.
Thanks to Can’t Stop the Bleeding
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Also, this:
Very much looking forward to Generation Kill. Also, Norman Chad should read this interview to learn how to make fun of Yankee-ness properly.
Richard Belzer putting in a cameo in the Wire as Munch was awesome.
I love The Wire, but I think the cop aspect of the show is very overrated. The strength of the show is its ability to portray the street life so brilliantly. The whole BPD scenario is fairly replacement level cop fare and nowhere near as well done as on Homicide.
I couldn't disagree more. I think they captured the politiking and bureaucratic gridlock of a thoroughly messed-up police force better than any other show. It was never a straight-up, let's get the bad guys cop show.
actually, I don't think Simon is a particularly good TV writer either. A great producer, yes - he assembles great talent and draws out great concepts - but there were a ton of great writers who contributed to the show. The fifth season had his fingerprints all over it, and it was without a doubt the worst-written season.
I was a bit disappointed with season 5 also, but I really can't imagine anything being better than seasons 3 and 4. Every episode just got better and better, simply unbelievable.
Hank Kingsley.
Maybe.
Debateable , but even if true, was there a better show on than Homicide during that 5th season?
To me, and I admit I am a sucker for that show, the worst of Homicide was better than any show at that time.
fair enough - 4 especially was so brilliant there was no where to go but down
he--the actor--hangs out at my local in Brooklyn. I haven't run into him yet, but it will be hard to supress The Wire fanboy in me if our paths cross.
I couldn't disagree more.
Is there a better character in the history of television than Omar Little?
Yeah, he isn't even the best character on the show.
And TV History? There are hundreds, lets start with Dorothy Zbornak, for one.
Fred Sanford.
I can see what Temple is saying in terms of the "cop aspect", in that if you've read Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, you've seen much of this before. I don't think that makes the characters or structures of the police department in The Wire any less brilliantly conceived, it just means that Simon (et al) had taken these characters and ideas and structures and placed them within a much more fully realized world, which is as it should be.
Randy was great too. That scene with Randy and Carver in the hospital? Who was not moved when that happened?
It's on DVD?
Michael Lee might have been the most disturbing character in the series. We really saw the evolution of a young kid into a cold-hearted gangster.
Don't forget Wallace from the first season; he was excellent.
Avon was fantastic.
Dookie and Michael as well. The greatness of The Wire for me is that it was the first tv show I've ever seen that felt real, that created a world that felt like actual people lived in. Nothing else I've ever seen has come close to that kind of verisimilitude. Then to add the tragic arcs and the absurdist comedy on top of that was just too much. They just nailed it and then had the good sense to stop. It still amazes me how the television industry has just completely ignored the show. You'd think they'd want to brag about it but instead they seem kind of embarassed by it. Strange.
Yeah, I might still be on sale at Best Buy. It's name is in the streets.
I have never had to buy a DVD yet.
Seasons 1 - 4 are on DVD, and season 5 (series finale) is due out in August. I agree with #32, everyone I've recommended the show to ends up getting very caught up in it and saying that they can't believe they never heard of it.
Don't click on the Best Wire moments if you haven't watched the show.
Mild dissent: I've watched season one and thought it was "okay". I intend to get around to watching season two at some point, but I'm certainly not engrossed in it or anything. However, I should say that except for me and a couple other people, everyone I know (and it's a heavily television-watching crowd) loves it.
Simon Interview
From that list above, I think a major one they missed was when Michael was dropping off Dookie and that other kid because he knew people would be after him, and Dookie has to go live in an alley full of drug addicts.
When Greggs got shot, never have I had an emotional reaction to a TV show like that before or since.
the various interconnections of the drug game and late capitalism being the primary ideas, though hardly the only ones.
I read a really good interview with Simon where he seemed quite proud of having Marlo ending up living Stringer's dream and hating it.
Bodie was my favorite character, I think Michael was the best, especially how he ended up.
I hated Bodie for this very reason, but season 4 completely changed my view on him. His death was one of the scenes that touched me the most. For 3 seasons he was basically too oblivious to be anything more than a pawn and then when he's finally coming to grips with what he's a part of and you, in the back of your head, want to hope that maybe he gets out or finds some righteous path...he's gone.
Micheal was a killer too, still pretty popular.
When Greggs got shot, never have I had an emotional reaction to a TV show like that before or since.
"Where's the boy, String...where's Wallace?!?!?!?!?"
That KILLED me.
And Bodie was just flat out cool.
The reaction I had when Greggs got shot didn't hit me until after, when Rawls got up in McNulty's face and told him, "I will be damned if you did anything to get a police shot today." or whatever. And McNulty just crumbles.
Didn't hate Chris, did hate Snoop. I was terrified during Michael's car ride with her.
From that list above, I think a major one they missed was when Michael was dropping off Dookie and that other kid because he knew people would be after him, and Dookie has to go live in an alley full of drug addicts.
No, the f*cked up part here is that that's the life Dookie chooses. He didn't have to go there, and Michael questioned him on his choice, but in the end Dookie (the kid that looked like he had the most hope when we first met them) succumbs to the same thing that has ailed his family and most of those around him.
He a soldier.
The end of that episode had both my wife and I in tears. I can't remember another time in which a movie or TV show has ever made me cry. That was powerful, powerful stuff.
Oh I completely agree. I 'loved' certain characters because they were so hateable. Pretty much all of them. But I mean liking in an admirable sense.
Omar kicked ass - and I thought his death caused such an uproar over its anti-climacticness was really a master stroke by Simon. The show is about unfullfilled potential, and probably the biggest buildup in the story for Omar to take down Marlo was so swiftly cut down.
Oh, I don't know. Chris earned some eternal karma points for what he did to Michael's stepfather. Just call him a mass murderer with a soul.
As for The Wire, I think I'm the only Wire fan on the planet who enjoys Season 2 (The Docks) the most. Perhaps because it's such a departure from the other four seasons of the show. There are tons of portrayals of drug and police culture in the media, but I had never seen anyone tackle the white working class in such realistic detail before that season. And Niko reminds me of my brother in a thousand (good) ways. Me? I'm the Ziggy of the family.
yeah, I've never understood why most fans don't like season 2 so much. To me it's the second-best (season 4 is tops - best single season of any television program, ever). If anything, it was the perfect way to expand the scope of the show - it wasn't just about the street, but about how the street is just one part of a massive social dynamic that touches the whole city.
How could they not have bubbles walking up the stairs?
This is the scene that hooked me.
Nicky Sobotka is easily my favorite character in the entire Wire series. After that, Stringer Bell and then maybe Carver.
I mean, there was a lot to dislike - the dog-fighting, for instance - but his love and grief were real, and affecting.
don't forget, he showed more affection for his fighting dog than for his uncle.
like I said, nothing redeeming about Cheese
I love Spiros reaction to Nico's explanation in that scene.
Cheese was loathsome. But that reminds me: Proposition Joe is another favorite character of mine. Started out as a minor player in the first season, and became more and more central as time went on.
I always liked Slim Charles, and especially so after he avenges Joe's death.
I found Season 3 to be very unbelievable and lacking the realism of the first 2 seasons--it tried to do too much and felt too much like it was made for t.v. I was always conscious that these were television characters and not real people, whereas for the most part I was able to forget that and really get absorbed by the first two seasons.
I think a big part of the problem for me came from the very beginning of the season, when the towers were torn down. The first two seasons made little sense in light of that new information - why would everyone have fought so bitterly for that territory if it was going to be torn down afterwards?
Wait until you see Season 4. A lot - A LOT - of Wire fans think it is the show's crowning achievement. I still prefer Season 2, but I think it says a lot about Season 4 that I knew in advance what its theme would be (the schools), and how utterly depressing and soul-destroying that theme would be, and yet it held every minute of my attention. The child actors are phenomenal (inconceivably good, so real that you suspect they're not acting), and one of my favorite no-luck misfits from the earlier seasons (Przbelewski) makes a big comeback and redeems himself.
I thought Season 5 was the weakest of them all. The drift of the characters (McNulty and Freamon particularly) felt forced, and the entire arc felt a little bit too much like David Simon's axe-grinding discharge of resentments accumulated over the course of his newspaper days. But I did love seeing Clark Johnson again in a major role. Underrated actor.
The other reason that both Homicide and The Wire appeal to me is because I lived in Baltimore for five years (undergrad) and was grew up 45 minutes down I-95. I've spent time in the bad parts of town, too...the show takes on a very different cast for people who have some direct long-term experience with the city.
And Towers or no, the territory was inherently valuable because it was located in an area with a lot of...clientele.
Alas, you have become old (though probably not as old as me). Actually, truth be told, it took me a fair amount of listening to get into their post-first-reunion* work, but now I think quite highly of a lot of it, even the much-derided Manscape album. Sure, it's a bit of a fall-off since the first 2 albums in particular (Pink Flag is probably my favorite album of all time, period, & that would be true even if it wasn't pretty much the Rosetta stone, as it were, for a good portion of everything halfway interesting that anyone's done since ... & for that matter, Chairs Missing & 154 prefigured just about everything that Pink Flag didn't), but that's sort of like saying that Ted Williams' seasons after 1941 represented a bit of a fall-off.
*They've now reunited ... let's see ... 3 times. Second-incarnation Wire starts with the Snakedrill EP circa '85, 3rd-incarnation with the first Read & Burn EP circa 2000 ... & now we're on the 4th reunion.
This isn't right. Munch was asking on behalf of Garty (sp?).
How the hell did Garty become a detective after almost losing his job when he refused to go in the projects?
I may never have hated a TV character more than I do Kellerman. I spend much time yelling at him. ###### loser.
Has someone claimed your extra season 3 DVD set yet? If you'd care to give it to someone you have greater interaction with, no foul, but if it's still up for grabs, I'd love to have it. I'm ready to get on the WIRE train.
Of all my 900-ish albums, none are DRMed so if you come up with any number of things I can zip up and sent you mp3-wise in payment, it would be my pleasure.
Five Greatest Wire Moments: (as few spoilers as possible)
1. Carver walking down the hallway
2. Bubs' speech to Jay
3. Death of Stringer Bell
4. Bodie's last stand
5. Marlo's speech in jail
This is leaving out so many, I feel like expanding it to 100 greatest.
Wow, never thought of that comparison. I love McNulty. They both drink too much, what else do they have in common? McNulty's a better cop. McNulty doesn't constantly act like a petulant child in every single moment of contact with other humans. McNulty's eyes aren't too close together.
And Kellerman is a tragic figure: undone by his own demons and his righteous sense of grievance at being thought corrupt (from his time in Arson) when in fact he was the only honest one. It tore him apart, and the dissolution was painfully realistic. I don't like the Kellerman of Season 6 precisely because it's too ugly to watch, but he was a major highlight of Seasons 4 and 5. (He also was a great partner for Lewis - they had the best chemistry of any pair in the history of the show, even better than Pembleton and Bayliss.) As I said earlier, "Have A Conscience" (from the middle of Season 5) is one of the finest hours of network television ever made.
Boy, top moments from The Wire is impossible. A few that pop into my head.
Wallace, Bodie and D talking about Chicken McNuggets.
Where Wallace at!
When Dookie asks Michael if he remebers that day at the amusement park.
Freeman shaking down Clay Davis.
Omar showing up at Prop Joe's with a clock for him to fix.
When Ziggy tosses the money from the drug deal out the window.
Carver deciding to write that one cop up because "everything matters"
McNulty forced to get a hummer in the line of duty. Spot on! Spot on!
The very first scene--Snot Boogie!
Bunk and McNulty scoping a murdder scene where the only dialogue is F#ck over and over.
Michael and Snoop's last scene.
Clay Davis on the witness stand.
McNulty confronting Templeton about his BS.
I'm in that camp. I won't spoil any endings for anyone who hasn't seen it, but the ending of that season and what happened to Randy was incredibly moving. But I was just as caught up in season 3, I loved the Bunny Colvin character.
Wondering if anyone has seen The Corner, which is an HBO miniseries that supposedly was a precursor of sorts to The Wire. Don't think David Simon had anything to do with it though.
pure f-ing poetry. 'i just took one foot out of the grave, i be d-ed if i go and put it back.'
best moment of season 4: omar and his lady friend rob marlo's drug drop, and later cheese complains about how she pulled a gun out of her private area and said 'that s--t was unseemly!'...
i laughed so hard.
Vortex - I understand your distaste for violence and human ugliness, but from what I understand, the WIRE (which I haven't seen yet either) is also full real humanity. What DO you watch on television?
The problem is that some of the people that make hyperbolic claims are actually television historians, so my game of "Gotcha!" doesn't work very well. Jerks! How dare they be able to back up their claims?
Doctor Who and PBS's recent string of Jane Austen adaptations are the only non-sports/non-news television programs I've watched this year. I don't enjoy any crime shows outside of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes adaptations from the 1980s...
Good grief. And do you type your posts, or do you have your manservant do it?
(I kid ... I kid!)
well, i guess it also depends on how well something ages and how tastes evolve. the wire may not be all that well regarded in years to come. for myself, i used to think monty python was the best tv i ever watched, but now find a lot of it to be a bit ... well ... silly, and not a funny silly, though there are still funny bits.
when i first watched brideshead revisited, i thought it was the best television series i ever saw. i also thought the adaptations of le carre from the bbc in the 80s were great. haven't seen them in a while, so don't know how i'd feel about them if i saw them today.
i've always preferred the multipart stuff that pbs would air from the bbc. it always seemed like the drama and the story were the important thing, not just stars and action. 'fortunes of war', the series about world war II with kenneth branagh (before he became insufferable) and emma thompson was great tv.
the wire and the sopranos were the first american shows i saw that felt accessible yet had dramatic reach.
I love the show, but I think some of the praise is pretty over the top here. What the hell do I know though.
1) In Season one, where Omar and Brandon are counting their spoils on the step, a crackhead approaches him with a baby in her arm. She says, "Mr, Omar, my check late." The crackhead is Michael Lee's mother and the baby she's holding is, of course, Bug.
2) When Bunk cheats on his wife and burns his clothes in the woman's bathroom, the woman is Miss Anna, Randy's foster mother.
3) Cheese Wagstaff and Randy Wagstaff are father and son. David Simon never got around to incorporating that into the story.
4) McNulty's ex-wife is the real estate agent who shows Nicky his aunt's house.
5) Omar's death is foreshadowed in Season Three, after the stash house shoot-out. Bunk surveys the scene and sees a bunch of small children imitating the shoot-out. One shouts something to the effect of, "I get to be Omar!" That's young Kennard.
This show is like the Great American Novel three times over. I'll remember every word of the scene where Snoop purchases the nailgun until the day I die. My favorite scene, however, is Omar and Brother's showdown in the alley, which opens the single best episode ever.
I've seen episodes that rival The Wire from other series. The Rifleman, The Twilight Zone, The Sopranos, Twin Peaks, The Honeymooners, WKRP, Seinfeld, and plenty of others. (The Rifleman has my favorite non Wire episode of tv in a story that invlolves a blind man and a cattle inspector. The densest half hour of television I've ever seen. I was mesmerized by it.) None of them had the arc or consistency of The Wire. At least not for me.
I wonder if some of the "its the show with the most realistic characters" sentiment springs from the fact that many of the them, the inner city ones in particular, are quite alien and "uncontacted" for many of us viewers.
They seem real because they make realistic seeming decisions and take realistic seeming actions but many things that would make them seem unreal go unnoticed because of our unfamiliarity with who they _really_ would be.
I wonder if some of the "its the show with the most realistic characters" sentiment springs from the fact that many of the them, the inner city ones in particular, are quite alien and "uncontacted" for many of us viewers.
They seem real because they make realistic seeming decisions and take realistic seeming actions but many things that would make them seem unreal go unnoticed because of our unfamiliarity with who they _really_ would be.
The characters in The Wire are, more or less, the people I have grown up with and around. It is very real.
I think that's an excellent point, and I had the same thought when Oz was on. Say what you will about that show, but I think they had terrific characters and excellent actors. Although sometimes I wonder if I thought they were excellent because there were no preconceived notions about the actors. When you hear, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger's name associated with a movie, you immediately know what kind of movie it is. If he ever tried a non-Arnold role, we probably would have a hard time getting past the notion of "it's Arnold, only as a lawyer," no matter how well he disappeared into the role. Casting works best when you're absolutely unfamiliar with the actor.
The Wire does a terrific job in regards to casting. I recognized D'Angelo from Waterboy, but absolutely no one else, save for Method Man, who is the only member of that show who was famous before The Wire.
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