...why this little tidbit makes me happy about Mayor Nutter:
Sometimes it's good to be mayor.
Mayor Nutter is such a huge fan of the gritty HBO drama, The Wire, that he has organized a special City Hall screening of the series finale Sunday night.
“As a fan it’s tremendous,” said Nutter, who squeezed in a viewing of the season opener in the jam-packed days before his inauguration. “I want to say thank you to HBO for responding.”
Wendell Pierce, the actor who portrays affable Detective Bunk Moreland, is scheduled to attend. Nutter hopes other actors from the show will sign on also.
The Wire is not so much a TV show as it is a stunning, ridiculously powerful indictment of the neglect of American cities, and the people within them. If you read this site, if you care about Philadelphia, trust me, you need to see the show.
I am only partially kidding when I say that it heartens me that Nutter is a huge fan of the show. If you don't watch the show (cough- Ray- cough), you might think I am being weird.
But, if you do watch it, you know exactly what I mean, right? Mayor Nutter is a devoted fan of the Wire, and that makes you feel a little better about where we are going in the next 3.9 years.
Unless, like you,
he sees himself as Carcetti or something.
No, no, joking aside, I totally agree.
Every white politically
So passé. Every white politically ambitious guy in Philadelphia watches the show and thinks they are Carcetti.
I think I call Lester.
Sure, Dan, Lester.
Sure, Dan, Lester. Whatever.
If anyone can score two tickets to this screening, send me a note. I would love to meet the mayor and the Bunk.
Sorry, I don't think Nutter gets it
I probably shouldn't be saying this because so many of us still want to bask in the glow of the "New Day." Damn it, I want to bask too. But as much as Nutter may love the show; I don't see where he really gets it. If he did, he would be galvanizing the City to see entrenched poverty and all of its victims as the ongoing emergency of our time. It's a day to day emergency, not something that screams out in headlines, one whose ramifications are nuanced and not always readily apparent. But it's killing our City and it's growing. And I just don't get the sense of alarm from the Mayor that I think the show insists that we adopt. I want to believe, but sorry, I just don't see it.
As you might guess, I disagree
Nutter's mayoral candidacy was about a lot of things -- ethics reform, government efficiency, creating jobs, recycling, taxes, etc. But where I think he outflanked everyone, politically and morally, was in his concern for the victims of violent crime. And he didn't take the easy road. After eight years of the Street administration, when we were consistently told that murder victims overwhelmingly had criminal records, that they were involved with drugs, or killed by someone they knew, and that therefore, people outside of that world shouldn't really think that Philadelphia has a crime problem -- Nutter wouldn't play that game any more.
I think it's that kind of insight, and empathy, not just for the poor strivers, the "working men," but for the corner boys and others caught up in criminality, that distinguishes Nutter from Street, that distinguished him from some (not all) of his opponents in the primary, and that distinguishes The Wire from every other police procedural in TV history.
I think I might disagree with both of you
This may seem like a stretch, but I think that the strongest connections Nutter may have to the brutally sharp critique the Wire gives us of post-everything America has to do with institutions.
There is deep tragic acute human suffering shown, and it exists here around us, but I think that if the Wire leaves any room for political action (outside of the realities of capitalism and federal disengagement from urban problems), it would probably be in the area of reforming the institutions that perpetuate pandering and mediocrity, and abandon those without political power. Not in fixing the crime rate per se, or getting more money in the schools.
I wasn't a big "reform and efficiency above all else" person during the mayoral primary, but now the one big area where I have hope invested in Nutter is there, that the goals of institutions like the police and all the other departments that serve the city turn back outwards to the citizens and away from patronage and expediency and stasis. Though it is almost definitely too much to hope for. See, again, Carcetti.
C'mon Stan, don't deny it,
C'mon Stan, don't deny it, it makes you feel good.
Season One
Stan and Nutter are like Rawls and McNulty, Krugman and Obama. I think I actually heard Stan say, "Tell him yourself. He's dead to me."
Nah, curmudgeon that you've decided I am
I can't help thinking how Nutter should respond. It's great that he helps build recognition for this great show, but he's the Mayor, he needs to do much more. And it actually gets me down that he doesn't. A few million more for this, a few million more for that, but nothing on the ground is going to change that much. There should be a sense of alarm sent out from the second floor, not just about the murders, but about the day to day horrors that people trapped in the "Wire" lifestyle here in Philly are subject to. But I don't hear it, and that's really too bad.
Sorry, that's how I feel about it.
Stan, you are a real card.
Stan, you are a real card.
Fishtowners already on it
....choosing their Wire characters.
Up on the wire
We in Fishtown have been up on The Wire for quite a while now. I'm with The Bunk or Omar. Their dichotomy says a lot about American cities these days.
Screw Carcetti. Who's among the young set on here is the next Clay Davis? SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTT.
www.whatever-it-takes.net
Edited
Jeez... I had to edit your comment. We can't be giving away plot lines for late converts and DVD watchers.
Yes yes yes
I was seriously pissed off to find out that the finale would not be avalible until next week. It really is an amazing show.
Ray eventually came over to the dark side on gchat, so I feel like we'll get him on this as well.
Bubbles
Let me see if I have this right.... Education policy, economic development, public health, and the criminal justice system are inter-related. So much so that to be an advocate for reforming one, you must be an advocate for all. I think I have heard that somewhere before.
This season is good but I think last season was better. Mayors asking the cops to cook the books to demonstrate a reduction in crime, has happened one time too many, and like Carcetti sometimes they become Governors. The McNulty created serial killer and Baltimore Sun reporter's "Dickensian" lies only add to the cynicism of our times. I found the 4th season's connection between failed urban schools and crime more profound.
While I don't know or maybe just won't say which Philly Pol is most like Clay Davis; I will say that I will miss Porposition Joe, Lester Freamon and Bubbles the most.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
— Margaret Mead
Seth
I came late to The Wire
like I come late to all TV shows. (Didja know that you can get the earliest sex and the city episodes on demand now?)
The Wire is very good. But I'm not following everything this season. How far back do I need to go to get it? The first season?
Just a little slow, just a little late
You could pick up with Season 4 (Seth is right -- it is the best) and do fairly well following Season 5.
Of course, then I highly recommend watching seasons 1-5 in a row, a disc or a season at a time.
I don't understand
For the record, I have asked Dan to borrow season 1 of the Wire twice...I did watch this great Pearl Bailey and Carol Channing special from 1969 via Netflix a few weeks ago...it was good.
Carol Channing--now talk about someone who is on the wire! Look how taut this performance was:
Somehow I just knew, Ray
that if you were going to exemplify a gay stereotype, you would put your own unique spin on it.
Carol Channing was camp before there was camp (or at least before Susan Sontag wrote about camp). Neat choice.
A far far better one than Barbra Streisand or Bette Midler Bette does have her moments but Carol Channing is sui generis, someone who came into the world without any precedents and was so weird as to leave no descendents, either.
But she still ain't no Gwen Verdon or Judy Holiday. Then again, they never had a Sesame Street gig.
Pearl Bailey, on the other hand, I never got. The African American Carol Channing is Eartha Kitt, no? I could never figure out if Earth Kitt was Little Richard in drag or vice versa.
Don't blame me for this post...I just celebrated a friends birthday and I'm a bit drunk. I miss blogging and, as far as I know, there is no official SEIU position on musical comedy so I'm free to speak out. That plus I've fallen under the influence of Spike Milligan again.
Eartha Kitt = Little Richard?
Gosh -- when Marc gets drunk, he gets weird.
Also, technically, Eartha Kitt is the black Julie Newmar. (It's a Catwoman thing.)
Look at the cheekbones
the strange gleem in their eyes and the cackle that sometimes comes out of them (Eartha in a low register, Richard in a high one) and you will see the resemblence. I grew up in a Catskills Hotel and met them both. Talking about weird...
And, speaking of Ethel Merman, when I was very young--and she was getting on in years--I saw her in New York at a revival of Annie Get Your Gun. I'm not sure I recognized this when I was five but, looking back, that was the probably best performance in drag I have ever seen...and I say that having been to P-town every summer for the last ten years or so.
There really ought to be a little smiley face of some kind you can use when being ironic.
oh Marc
race and identity are so complex. Carol Channing has a multi-racial background, from CNN:
Cool / A North Carolina Story
Her performance style, like that of many white performers, drew on black models.
The google eye thing she does and some of her singing style comes, I think, from Armstrong
I once was in a checkout line in Charlotte, where I worked for ten years. (The major cultural advantage of Charlotte btw is absolutely wonderful huge super-markets)
Time Magazine had just come out with a cover story about interracial marriages. The cover picture was of face that was a computer meld of faces from various races and ethnicities.
I picked it up to look at it and heard the clerk say, "Oh, I think that's terrible. I'm no bigot but I think the races should stay among themselves."
I looked up at her and saw a woman who could have been on that cover.
Rather than anger, I just felt very bad for her.
PS I would think that "our champion" in that quote should read "Gower Champion," who, if I remember correctly, directed Hello, Dolly.
Does that beat Liza With a
Does that beat Liza With a Z? As far as Carol goes, I'm more of an Ethal Merman man myself. And as far as Black singers, AUdra McDonald, fogetta bout it.
Well I just got an email about homelessness in Philly
which is just getting worse and worse. The email included a link to Aaron Couch's gut-wrenching column in the DN today on the subject. Homelessness, in an ironic way, of course, is a major theme of this year's show. Yet, I predict that next year at this time business will have gotten its tax cuts, but there will be no improvement in the homelessness situation either in Baltimore or in Philly. And, if I'm wrong, as I hope, you can pick the hat, and add the salt and pepper.
BACK to the Wire
Season 4 was the real hook for me -- seeing how our kids will get an education whether its in public schools or on the streets. Love love love this show, I miss Stringer and Bodie, enjoy Marlo the soft spoken killer, and little Michael who is too grown too fast, but being a former newspaper reporter, I have to say I have a thing for Gus the editor who takes it all on and tries to steer his paper with some dignity and pride. My only wish is that there were some more powerful woman characters. On the street and in the ports series we're mostly prostitutes and addicts. Most women I know are holding down the forts in a powerful way. Madame Council President though is a ball buster!
Favorite Women on The Wire
Kima Greggs -- tough, smart, real police with real integrity. And a real sex life! with real domestic problems. Still waiting for one last scene between her and Bubbles.
Marcia Donnelly -- I found this woman totally believable as the Assistant Principal at Tilghman middle.
Rhonda Perlman -- again, smart and capable, yet not without flaws (especially ambition). More than Madame Council Pres, she's the lady Carcetti.
Beadie Russell -- emerging again as the conscience of the show.
Snoop Pearson -- a kind of shadow Kima/shadow Michael, just as effective but without a conscience. Invariably gets the best lines.
Omar's sister -- not a lot of screen time, but as Omar says, she's been through a lot.
Marla Daniels -- Cedric's ex-wife, city councilwoman -- they should have done more with her in the past two seasons. Maybe she could be the new head of Carcetti's old comittee? Ah, well. Too late for regrets.
Also, neither of these characters have been exactly admirable, but the portrayals of D'Angelo's and Namond's mothers were excellent.
I said this somewhere else
also i have decided that this show does not care about writing women characters
like, maybe their marginalized-ness reflects a patriarchal culture or whatever, but they are all really shallow except kima, who is supposed to be the dude in her life/relationships
there are a ton of women characters, but the show seems so incurious about them except as foils, unlike how it treats almost all the men ...
the show preserves a very male/incurious perspective on the women characters
the most interesting ones aside from kima, who is meant to be a dude, are avon's mom and namon's mom. the political operative woman, carcetti's wife, daniel's wife, the women in the longshoremen's lives, they are all pretty one-dimensional. ...
also what was the girl's name in the special class? you don't get inside her at all, but like dookie, even though you don't see exactly what she's gone through you get it and it cuts you pretty deep
i guess the scenes with d's girlfriend come closest to what i mean--there is so much that is fascinating about gender relationships all around the things that the show DOES focus on
Right about incurious
And there are a number of things on that show that are sexually messed up. For instance, there's a very strong dark-skinned lover/light-skinned beloved trope, from Cedric and Rhonda to D'Angelo/ and Charlene to Omar and his lovers. (Apart from Sydnor, Bodie and the one M.E., the only light-skinned men of color are Omar's lovers -- but there are lots of attractive light-skinned women.)
My one continual complaint about HBO dramas, which I do indeed love, is that too many of them hinge on titilating sexual scenes and romanticized violence. As a contrast, it was astonishing to watch Mad Men and to realize about five episodes in, "Hey, none of these people are going to get killed!"
What The Wire misses
The Wire is a great show, but it is a heavily patriarchal culture and how women fit into that, subvert it, upend it, etc. gets missed. As Jennifer says, it's not about the quantity of women characters but what they bring to the show.
And I guess that might lead me to think that as humane as The Wire is in that Shakespearean tragedy sort of way, it does lack some element of humanity that I'm not so sure the Simon/Burns team ever really sees: which is that between the "good" guys and the "bad" guys and the hustlers and the victims, that there are community organizers, neighborhood community and civic leaders, community groups and local heroes that have always challenged the system, that have changed the way things could be from day to day if not over time.
Change doesn't have to happen solely from institutions or individuals. It can happen in independent spaces where people work collectively for justice and humanity. Otherwise we leave it in the place of the Wire, where institutions hold title but not power, and individuals live and die, nobly, tragically, endlessly.
Fot the Wire-nuts and the Nutter-Butters
Nutter is about to be inteviewed about "The Wire" on WIP.
Ok, I'm going to rent the DVDs (too cheap to pay for cable).