The Wire Series 1

[Ginger Yellow]

The Wire Series 1

The top DA in the USA is the Attorney General (of which Alberto Gonzales recently got indicted by Baltazar Garzon, in which case it will be the first time the US Federal Government will go up against International law.)

Hardly. For a start, he's no longer the federal government. More importantly, there's loads of previous occasions when the federal govenrment has gone up against international law. To take just one example, the ICJ ruling on the US mining of Nicaragua's harbours and other crimes. Of course, Reagan just unilaterally decided that the ICJ didn't have jurisdiction over its actions in Central America, despite the US having ratified the treaty.

Obviously there have also been plenty of WTO and NAFTA disputes as well.

[N est à?]

The Wire Series 1

Tubby, I thought a bit of witlessness would be up your street- you're always saying how much you hate those slick American TV dramas with teams of writers all paid by the wisecrack (and I agree).

No lack of humour in the Wire, albeit some of it startlingly incongruous.

[Purves Grundy]

The Wire Series 1

You feel me?

Nobody mentioned anything about that.

Might just stick to play.com if it's all the same to you.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Wire Series 1

That's a fair point, though my objection to "teams of writers" has a fair bit to do with not being able to watch the cricket without having to pay for them.

[Spearmint Rhino]

The Wire Series 1

Oh yeah, Wee Bey's another Entourage/Wire crossover. He turns up in Entourage as Saigon's manager.

[garcia]

The Wire Series 1

senator clay davis turns up as a cable repair guy in some movie i was watching. he was better as clay davis.

towards the end of gangs of new york, there are these huge riots and black people are being chased around the streets by lynch mobs. the camera focuses in on one and it's poor d'angelo - guy can't catch a break.

[Ginger Yellow]

The Wire Series 1

I was weirded out a bit when Cutty showed up as a Terminator in the TV series.

[Brandenburger Toro]

The Wire Series 1

Seriously, it's no different to your own "fo' damn sho'" upthread.

Seriously, yeah it is.

I appreciate, and I assume everyone else does, that you're using it with the best of intentions, and making reference to Lenny Bruce. but Lenny bruce was wrong, and the word is jsut too toxic.

Considering the shrift ganja was given for "brothers", I think it's fair enough to ask you to change it. Again.

[Purves Grundy]

The Wire Series 1

No.

[N est à?]

The Wire Series 1

You wrong. And I stand shoulder to shoulder with my, er, brother Chris Rock on this one.

[Purves Grundy]

The Wire Series 1

So hang on, Nesta, who is allowed to say 'nigger'? Is David Simon allowed to use it when writing his scripts?

Are people allowed to when quoting scripts?

Are people allowed to when writing Wire fan-fiction?

Am I allowed to when clearly writing with another's voice (writing as me there'd have been a "has" or more likely a " 's" in there)?

It stays.

[Brandenburger Toro]

The Wire Series 1

The existence of a continuum doesn't mean there isn't a line of acceptabililty somewhere along the way.

[Purves Grundy]

The Wire Series 1

Arguably so. But I don't think the examples I gave go very far along that continuum at all. And I certainly don't think they went far enough to cross any sensibly-placed line.

[Brandenburger Toro]

The Wire Series 1

You're writing in another's voice, but clearly expressing your own point of view. Nor is it necessary for any purposes of fictive realism. Nor is it quoted, so there's no "use/mention" distinction here.

So it's pretty distinct from any of those, in the rather significant sense of being entirely gratuitous, at least.

[Spearmint Rhino]

The Wire Series 1

What if he'd said "Omar, my chocolate boy"?

[Brandenburger Toro]

The Wire Series 1

Coffee, monitor, etc.

[jason voorhees]

The Wire Series 1

GY, it's the first time an American Attorney General will be indicted under international law.

And yes, I would have assumed that we all knew that he was not Attorney General at the moment. And we all know he's having a lot of trouble finding a job.

Anyway, some key words on the street:

Re-Up - Means they need to get a re-up (replenishing) of the stash (heroin, crack.)

S'upwithcha - What's up with you

Smith - Smith and Wesson gun

The Game - drug game

hopper - pawns in the game

G-pack - 100 vials of coke

[Spearmint Rhino]

The Wire Series 1

Jason (and other US-based posters), to what extent are the main actors in The Wire stars in the States? By which I mean public figures, household names, celebrities, whatever.

I ask because on one of the commentaries, Dominic West casually talks about having gone to New Orleans with the guy who plays Sergei, and having a wild night with three nurses.

Now, I guess the US doesn't have the same sort of tabloid press as the UK, but if that was the star of a hit British show making that admission, the papers would have been all over it the next day, tracking down every nurse in Louisiana and offering them five-figure cheques for the kiss-and-tell dirt.

(And the star, knowing this, wouldn't have admitted it in the first place...)

[Ek weet nie]

The Wire Series 1

The strangest acting move comes from Tristan Wilds, who played Michael, is now acting in the relaunched 90210.

[matt j]

The Wire Series 1

Not really stars at all. People who know the show recognize them when they appear on other things, but they are definitely not really major tabloid material.

There is a noted difference as well between 'TV' and 'Hollywood' level star-power, so the cast of a cable (pay channel) TV show is pretty low down the 2nd tier. No matter how great the show.

[jason voorhees]

The Wire Series 1

Think of The Wire actors as 80s rappers, say, Run DMC. Huge in the world that they're in, but the mainstream has no fuckin idea of what to do with them, or who they even are. Every reality show, I mean every reality show, features on the covers of the tabloids and shopping market magazines.

Like "The Bachelor finds love again," or "Dancing With the Stars Diet Secrets."

Look at the viewing figures for network shows (in the 10s of millions,) and look at HBO shows (in the hundreds of thousands) and it's easy to see why. The Sopranos was the first to break into the millions, and Gandolfini always liked going on private strikes in between cheating on his wife, and was kind of living like Tony Soprano, so he'd have stories written about him.

However, for the actors, there is an underground quality to the show where the nightclub scene who would absolutely know who they are, and would act accordingly (vice versa for reality tv stars, who would get treated like anyone else.) Figure it's like Run DMC going into a Milwaukee or Minneapolis or Las Vegas nightclub in the 80s.

[jason voorhees]

The Wire Series 1

Regarding the pockets of intelligence or culture all over the US, and a similar story to Dominic West having a ball in New Orleans...(I don't know if TG wants me to tell this story, but it's too f'n funny not to...)

When TG was over in NYC a year ago, he went to a club. Now as I've said, the Premier League is huge in New York City. So as he went to a club, a bouncer heard his accent and asked "are you a footballer ?" in a New York accent.

Of course TG said yes, and had to figure out a team that no one would really know, so he said "Birmingham City." Within minutes, he was up in the VIP with a bottle of Chrissy. He got free passes to the club they were opening in Las Vegas, and split before they looked him up on the internet.

[diggedy derek]

The Wire Series 1

The strangest acting move comes from Tristan Wilds, who played Michael, is now acting in the relaunched 90210.

True dat.

[garcia]

The Wire Series 1

i wonder what lance reddick earned for this

[matt j]

The Wire Series 1

My general view of any actor from The Wire doing odd roles and commercials is go make the money, man, you earned it.