The Wire's War on the Drug War

This article escaped my attention but it was an op-ed published in Time magazine in the March 5 issue. Penned by Simon, Burns and the show's trio of mystery novelists-cum-screenwriters - Richard Price, Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos - the piece urges jury nullification as a form of civil disobedience towards the flawed drug war.

In their own words, "If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented... No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens."

Now, I really, really admire these guys and hope that I can have half as great a writing career as they've had; however I can't say that I agree with this approach. It smacks of nihilism: the drug war is bad so we're going to sabotage it. We're going to undermine the bedrock of the court system - citizens arriving at objective decisions on a jury by listening to presented evidence - to make a point. It's just an arms-crossed "pooey" gesture that does not contribute to any real lasting solution.

Those interested in proposed substantive changes in drug policy should visit the Drug Policy Alliance's web page. Here's a link to their "What's Wrong with the Drug War" page that goes into the issues deeply. As far as I know, they're the preeminent organization creating policy alternatives to the current mess.

All right, that's all for blogging this week. If anybody wants me I'll be at Joshua Tree.

Wire Roundup


- Here's the last entry on Sudhir Venkatesh's page on the Freakonomics blog about watching the show with real-life thugs. Funny how they stopped participating. Favorite quote, "This is fun if you work all day behind a desk, or you’re sitting in some suburb. But for us, it’s like watching somebody make a movie about you." I guess the show hit home.

For those of you interested in the sociology and street economics behind the show, I highly recommend reading "Freakonomics." At the very least read the chapter, "Why Drug Dealers Live with Their Mothers" which is based on Venkatesh's research in Chicago housing projects. UCLA had the book on its summer reading list and I read it (and I'm a very slow reader) in about two days.

- For all the print "The Wire" got the ratings did not back it up. Only 1.1 million people watched the finale at its originally scheduled time. That's less than "John from Cincinatti" got! And it's less than last season's finale as well. I can't remember any show who's reputation so far out performed its ratings.

One thing I've always wondered about is the business model of HBO and indeed all premium TV channels. "The Wire" can't be a cheap show to make. How did it stick around for so long given its low ratings? If this show were on NBC or CBS or something, we would have never made it past the middle of Season One.

Atlantic Monthly round table on "The Wire"

Recently, the Atlantic had a discussion among two of their senior writers: Mark Bowden, Jeffrey Goldberg. Bowden, a former Baltimore and Philadelphia writer who wrote "Blackhawk Down" is one of my favorite journalists (for the record, my fellow Californian George Packer is my favorite. Come to think of it though I've never read anything he's written about CA).

You can go the page with four separate clips here. I didn't watch the whole thing. It didn't really start to get insightful till the second clip. I liked their insights into the Sun though their accolades for the show are familiar.

Sorry it's taken me awhile to post about. I'm in finals right now and all I do is write all day anyways. Really appreciate all the comments and positive feedback.

I rewatched the series finale a few days ago and I've scribbled down some thoughts but rather than just let them dribble out half-formed I'd like to take some time to compose them.

There were many write-ups of "The Wire" after it was over in all the big papers. The only one that made an impression on me was the LA Times write up by Mary McNamara. She called it a "sad and lovely finale." Money quote:

"Snoop did what she did -- killed lots of people -- because that's what you do, you know,
when you're Snoop. It's not any more complicated than that. Or at least not according to 'The Wire.' The universe moves in slow, painfully familiar patterns that creep in that
ever-widening gyre toward degeneration. Only a few small instances of transformation
briefly postpone the decline."

Also, here's an interview with Dominic West from the LA Times from last month. If there's going to be anymore Wire it will be in the form of a prequel.

- I'll post more later this week. I'm flipping through a H.L. Mencken biography right now. I'd like to compose a short little piece comparing his life to Simon's. Both skeptical, hyper-productive men who were able to have amazing careers in journalism without leaving Baltimore.

–30–

“It was worth it. Wasn’t it?” – McNulty

It’s a wrap. Hard to believe, but it is. I had a lot of anticipation for this episode; I had high expectations. I purposefully avoided reading anything on the web this week that would give away its contents. And I was mostly pleased with the results.

I was expecting Simon to end the show on a more pessimistic note. The man who said that “’The Wire’ is a show about the end of the American empire” had his contrasting plotlines end rather neatly. Just about every character makes their swan appearance in the ending montage with a full smile. I didn’t see Dukie becoming a junkie – and his transition to this was too sudden – but Michael becoming the next Omar was the logical choice after his association with Marlo ended.

The general lesson? Things don’t change (that was the vibe from the montage, which reminded me so much of the ending montage for Season One). Everybody who gets their bread from the system finds a way to scratch the back of the other guy to make sure that nothing changes. Everyone’s incentive is to cooperate, to go with the flow of events no matter how immoral it is. Valchek put it best counseling Herc about how to deal with his discovery of Royce getting head in the mayor’s office last season, “Just shut up and play it up.”

At the end of the day, that’s what everybody does. Rawls, Washington, the Sun staff and Carcetti do it and ride it to success. Anybody who cared more about accomplishing a mission and “po-lice” work – Daniels, McNulty and Lester – finds themselves forced into retirement.

Now this tide of events is not surprising. Simon and Burns have always been interested in showing how “it’s better to be clever than good” and how people in institutions operate in this self-reinforcing game of back scratching. I’ve written about this theme before. So how the characters ended given their dispositions is not at all surprising.

Would there be room for a Sixth Season? As much as I love this show, my gut is to say that there might not be. Another season of watching bureaucratic in-fighting, of valiant individuals being crushed by expediency would be too predictable (it was oftentimes this season). For the show to continue, it would have to turn a new page in its tonality and approach the urban experience in a different light. The show would have to focus on something else besides decay and a blue-collar city’s fall from grace and embrace recent demographic and labor trends.

I read once somewhere that if Simon were to do a Sixth Season, it would be about the influx of Latinos in Baltimore, and more broadly, in the U.S. That would be perfect. Instead of showing something rotting, it would show something new and coming into being. The time is ripe for the first great television show about the experience of Latino immigrants in this country – and to be executed in that gritty, uncompromising Burns-Simon style. So, it’s too bad that they won’t be doing this - though I think Baltimore wouldn't be the right setting for a show like this.

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I’ll also say this: the plotline of the Sun was the weakest in the series. It had its moments but it never had the same legs as the world of the docks, the police, the Hall or the streets. Why? It lacked good characters. None of the characters ever became really three-dimensional. We mostly saw them at work. Scott was nothing more than a pip-squeaking lying reporter. We could have seen a personal scene where he’s visiting some successful college buddy or his parents to better understand his motivations. This would have added a lot of texture.

Likewise with Alma and Fletcher. Besides one scene where Haynes is at home, we never really got a feel for who they were. Perhaps in a 13-episode season this would have been different.

I was particularly disappointed in this episode. Haynes has all this evidence against Scott and it never fully comes out. Scott never has to defend himself in front of the editors who presumably make excuses for his work. There’s all this tension building and building – and then nothing comes of it. Just a lame montage scene of him accepting a Pulitzer at Columbia. There needed to be a climax scene like there was between Levy and Pearlman.

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A funny thing about this season: it was all shot during the spring and summer months. I don’t know any other season that did that. The Baltimore of this season looks more inviting than seasons past.

I always have a bit of envy watching summer scenes where all the characters wear short sleeve shirts at night. Can’t do that in San Francisco save five freakish nights of the year. That scene in the park with Bubbles and Waylon was particularly well shot.

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As for the Fayette Mafia boys? Michael becomes Omar, Dukie-Bubbles, Namond looks poised to become like Bunny or Carver, and who knows what Randy will become. Sadly, only Namond will become anything. The rest will flame out at some point.

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I liked that scene at the end with Marlo. He’s like Greggs or McNulty: he’s just meant for action. He can’t really change who he is. He doesn’t feel right in that suit at the downtown cocktail event. Instead he has to crack heads at some forlorn corner in his own neighborhood. After he scatters the hoodlums, he wears an expression that seems to say, “Damn that felt good!” The corners are all he knows. Like we’ve seen with Omar or Greggs or a thousand other characters: you can’t change who you are. This man will always be a man of the streets. His background is his destiny.

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It's always been unclear to me what exactly Daniels' transgressions were at the Eastern District when he was coming up. Obviously, they were big enough to warrant his dismissal. It's been around since Season One but it's never been explained exactly what he did. We've just seen a binder being waved around with menace by different officials. A rare overlooked detail on the show.

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I'll close with this thought:

At the end of the day, “The Wire” isn’t about Baltimore or corrupt bureaucracies and drug organizations: it was a 60-episode lament of the decline of community, of trust and the social and moral decay that results from this. While Robert Reich’s “Supercapitalism” could be read as the catalyst for what we’ve seen over the last six years on our televisions, Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” would be its social result. When Putnam writes, “Without at first noticing, we have been pulled apart from one another and from our communities over the last third of the century” it might as well be Simon talking.

Simon wants there to be a tighter social cohesion, where people don’t just get ahead by “shutting up and playing it up” but have an incentive to do the right things – as Daniels wanted to do with the police department – to make social institutions function more justly and with greater competence. Only then will people trust each other more, and have incentives to act in the public interest. People shouldn't just want to earn enough money to shut themselves away in a gated community but should be fully engaged in their surrounding communities.

It was an amazing show and I’ll be re-watching it for a long time.

- I’ll post more when I have more time and when I’ve gotten the chance to watch the episode for a second time.

Late Editions

“My name is my name.” – Marlo
“Be creative gentlemen.” – Michael Steintorf (Carcetti’s chief of staff)

Wow. The second-to-last episode in every season has always been the action-packed one and “Late Editions” did not disappoint. The similar ones in season’s three and four were among the show’s all-time best and were penned (as this one was) by D.C. crime novelist George Pelecanos.

“Late Editions” started out with a very quick pace, almost as if they were making up for lost time. The Stanfield re-supply is discovered, staked out, and taken down all in the first 15-20 minutes.

Given that the police have spent much of the last two seasons building up a case against his operation, the take down happened with surprisingly little drama. I was almost disappointed. I was at least hoping for some dramatic face-to-face in the interrogation room between Bunk and Chris. We see the SWAT team going in directly after the scene where Daniels calls in for a warrant to go into the warehouse. No jockeying for power among different agencies. For once, everything operates as it is supposed to.

One thing this season has lacked up until this point: surprises. McNulty brutalizing that DOA body in episode two and Prop Joe’s death were the only two things that jump out. Every other plot twist has been fairly predictable. But having Snoop and Omar dropped by people you wouldn’t think of as their adversaries added a nice twist. Those were the “Damn!” moments.

That scene with Michael and Snoop in the alley was memorable: a sudden switch from on the hunt to the hunted. Snoop shows no real surprise when she knows she’s about to get got. We even see, for the first time, some femininity. She asks Michael, “How do I look?” before he kills her. “You look good girl.” He pulls the trigger. The creed she lived by, “Deserve got nuthin’ to do with it” was fulfilled by her protégé.

But her look reminded me of the one on Chris’ face when he learns he’s caught a murder. It’s like, “Hey, it’s just a part of the game and I didn’t expect much else to happen anyways.”

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This was the first episode where I found myself feeling sorry for Marlo and his crew. Why? How isolated they are from society, from humanity and really – from themselves. What was a tight operation appears to be disintegrating into a sort of “Reservoir Dogs” cruelty where the players turn on themselves. When you think about it, it was entirely predictable.

Why? Simply put: there’s no trust in Marlo’s organization; no “code” as Omar and Bunk believe in the word. Witness what Snoop says to O-Dog when he learns he has to take a few years for a gun charge he’s innocent of: either take the years or find himself “working at Wal-Mart or some shit.” It’s cruel, it’s mean but people like O-Dog know they have no other good choices. Such actions only encourage short-term loyalty.

There was some vindication in finally seeing Marlo’s lack of trust - and resulting narcissism - turn on him. I’d bet a lot of money this guy was abandoned by his parents at a young age. Whether it was spying on Vondas after Omar’s heist last season or flying to the Caribbean to take money out of his bank, the guy has no trust in anybody. He effectively made getting picked up by the police a death sentence. You’re guilty before proven innocent as Little Kevin and Bodie found out. Michael was sly enough to realize this and make a pre-emptive strike.

What’s sad about it is how no one from this world is able to really escape their neighborhood, their circumstances, their frame of reference to the world. For instance, it never occurs to him that Levy is culpable for anything. Marlo’s boys hear “sources of information” and instantly think about a snitch – one of their own. They’re just not educated enough to think outside of their environment and as a result find themselves isolated from the surrounding society. Paranoia occurs. “I just don’t see the boy snitching,” Chris says. “Are you willing to bet your future on that?” Marlo replies.

The best example of this isolation is in Season Three where Stringer attempted to become a business man. Avon ridiculed him. Stringer wanted to be something greater than just a West Baltimore drug dealer but found himself out of his league dealing with people like Clay Davis. It wasn’t about the corners, he told Avon, it was “about product” and distribution. But no one agreed with him. He couldn’t overcome the environment he grew up in and he died as a result of a lifetime of shady deals.

The counter to this is Namond. That was his world but he’s been removed from it and is thriving. All it took was a little love and respect, something he got none of from a mom who wanted him to be a drug dealer.

I figured that Michael was poised to become the next Marlo but instead he looks like another refugee of the corners. That was a profound scene in the car outside the Arabber stables where Dukie and Michael talk about the past. It was well acted and paced. Great long silences. I liked the way that Dukie looked at Michael but Michael didn’t look back. Just proves that while Michael is more confident than Dukie, he’s less connected to the world outside him. Dukie is resourceful, he’s courageous enough to ask for other’s help. Like the rest, he has bad choices but he hasn’t adapted a hardness that – as we’ve seen with Michael – is equal parts an asset and a liability.

That conversation between Lester and Clay would seem to set up a plot thread for Season Six: going after Levy and the white-collar criminals who enable the drug trade. It’s about time the focus went there. However, there is talk of a Wire movie…

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One thing I cannot quite understand is Greggs’ motivation in ratting on McNulty. She’s always been one of the boys in the squad. What compelled her to go to Daniels? Perhaps it’s the humiliation she suffered. She interviewed the families of the “victims,” accompanied him to Quantico, dug up files. She has a right to be pissed. But she doesn’t seem happy about the final result: Marlo in bracelets. I’m surprised too, how McNulty didn’t defend himself to her, how he never took credit for it.

Great line from Landsman to McNulty: “With everything we’ve given you, you should have fire coming out of your ass.”

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This is the episode where Bubbles became Reginald. This show wouldn’t have been the same without him – it would have been just a really well-crafted cops-and-robbers show. He’s the real “Dickensian aspect” the Sun’s editors are after. He’s the real humanity on the show. We see the pain of the city through his journey, how common people are tripped up by the internecine conflicts that clog up bureaucracies.

And his line, “Ain’t no shame in holding on to grief as long as you make room for other things,” was one of the show’s all-time best.


- “You lie about combat if you weren’t there.” Good line from the vet. Joseph J. Ellis would agree.

- Carcetti has become what he said he wouldn’t be: the statistics-obsessed politician. His ambition for the governor’s mansion has made him break all the promises he kept. He’s become totally unlikable.

- Herc has fallen too. He’s a snitch for Levy now.

- It’s worth pointing out that the last few episodes have been the season’s best. They’ve all written by crime novelists who write for the show: Richard Price, Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane. Coincidence? Also, there was a large profile of Richard Price in Sunday’s NY Times.

- I still don’t quite understand the code, and how Lester got map coordinate “G10” from the clock time he saw on the phones. But then, I’ve watched “LA Confidential” four times and couldn’t explain the plot to anybody.

- I’m tired of how every episode this season lifts its title from some aspect of journalism. A lot of the episode titles haven’t been especially descriptive or emblematic of its contents.

- Oh, sorry about giving away the plot twist for "No Country for Old Men" last week for parable's sake. I just figured most people had seen it. My bad.

I’m looking forward to next week’s episode “ – 30 – “ with anticipation and dread. I can’t believe this show’s gonna end! Though I’ll probably do better in my classes when it does.

And by the way, “- 30 –“ is the old school way to sign the end of a press release. When I wrote press releases I’d end them with “###” but one of my old bosses made me change to that.
The final episode isn’t available On Demand so I won’t be able to blog about it in detail till the 11th.

If there’s anybody in LA interested in having a “Wire” party let me know!