Nate Fick at DNC 08-”It took seven years of hard experience to get me on this stage.”

Nate Fick was one of the early speakers in the line up for the Democratic National Convention’s final night at Invesco Stadium. He was one of the “American Voices,” a group of Americans selected to tell their stories during last night’s historic event.

Below, the text of Fick’s remarks.

Good afternoon. I’m Nathaniel Fick. My Marine platoon landed in Afghanistan on a moonlit night in 2001. A little more than a year later, we rolled into Iraq. I’ll never forget one dawn after a vicious gun battle. We’d just medevaced one of our wounded Marines, and I turned to see a small American flag hanging from a humvee’s antenna. For a second, it reminded me of the line we all know so well: “And our flag was still there.”

I registered as a Republican at 18 and voted for John McCain in 2000. It took seven years of hard experience to get me on this stage. But we cannot afford more of the same. That’s why we need Barack Obama and Joe Biden to lead us beyond the tired divisions of the past. They have the judgment to make the right decisions, leading our military, and uphold our highest ideals.

Everyone who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan has left something: a friend, a limb, a piece of their youth. In those palm groves and on those ridge lines, this is personal for us. I don’t want to retreat; I want to win.

The past seven years have been hard, often heartbreaking. Our flag, however, is still there. Let’s move forward in our quest to live up to the idea of America.

I can’t find a video of it on the DNC site yet, but I did see Fick speak. It was very moving. The part about everyone who was there “left something” reminded me of something that completely tore me up when I saw it during one of the video segments aired earlier during the convention: a young Marine spoke about how seeing the boots and helmets of  fallen comrades, arranged in lines for a memorial service, was so powerful for soldiers because they had each spent so much time living and fighting in those exact same uniforms, wearing those exact same boots.

So was “The Wire” a Black show?

The Wire was probably the most successful show ever on television with a predominantly Black cast. But wait. Before anyone pats themselves on the back, what other shows have had a predmoninatly Black cast?

David Mills goes throught quite a few, but his list ends in 1984. Since then, we’ve had ROC, Cosby spinoffs, Martin, Everybody Hates Chris, and…well…that’s about it except for the WB and UPN.

Let the bodies hit the floor

Were we wrong, or what? 

The only guy that got bagged was Cheese (Thank you Slim Charles), Michael is the new Omar, Dukie is the new Bubbles, Rhonda is the new Gary, Chris is the new Wee-Bey, Bubbles got to come upstairs (Amen!), and everybody on the side of the law covered their asses most well.

Valchek? I’m glad I wasn’t in the writers’ room when that particular character arc went down. But, with the writers knowing BPD like they do, it makes sense.

As far as wagering, Ray and I have a push: Bubbles stayed clean (Ray won that one), and Lester stayed alive (I got that one). So no dances at She-She’s, no Jameson. I’m glad I lost the Bubbles bet, and I’m real glad he got to go upstairs.

Who knew that the whole serial killer plot would turn into Fail-Safe?

In any case, this was as close as it could possibly come to a feel-good ending, although Bawlmer looks exactly the same as it did 5 seasons ago: only the names have changed.

So…McNulty

We’ve been discussing the fate of McNulty. From the path the show is taking, and from the looks of the previews, McNulty hasn’t got much of a future. He’s permanently fucked things up with Rhonda, Beadie, his ex, and his kids. His secret is out within the department and looks like it gets out into City Hall next week too. There are more homeless bodies turning up, meaning maybe, what, a copy-cat killer who got his ideas reading about McNulty’s fiction in the papers?

NuPac’ers can fuck up a wet dream

Get thee over to David Mills’ blog and read “The end of The Wire“.  The writer of “Soft Eyes” has kind words to say about the show wrapping, and a pile of links I hadn’t seen before.  His pic with the post also reminds me how much I miss Prop Joe.

Follow the Money: The Addict Rate of Exchange

I wanted Bubbles to stay clean really badly, for personal reasons. Because I have too many friends who fight this disease on a daily basis. I know people who didn’t make it through Mardi Gras this year, who threw away months of hard-earned, clear-eyed sobriety, because during parade season they couldn’t see the harm in “just one beer after being good for so long” and by Mardi Gras day they were back to straight vodka in the morning, or smoking crack in a boarded up vacant in the flood zone, or methed to the tits and sucking cock for strangers in a gay bathhouse. I have a good friend, an alcoholic, who took his own life last month because he just couldn’t grasp how to live. It’s heartbreaking.

Bubbles

Man.

I grinned from ear to ear the whole scene until I cried.

…like a train that is nearly always late

Speculation, not spoilers.

In 58, while Sydnor is doing surveillance on Marlo and Monk, a train passes by on the el in the background. (Dunno if they call it an el in Bal’more. So shoot me. No, wait, don’t.)

We’ve talked a lot about trains foreshadowing death in The Wire. Was this Omar’s train? But Omar died a lot earlier in the episode. Monk? Who cares? Marlo? Maybe, but maybe not.

So I’m thinking about Sydnor, and the repercussions of McNulty’s hubris. We all know that fate will deal McNulty a big steaming cup of remorse by the end of the season, and it’s not just going to be some trivial shit like getting put back on harbor patrol.

What’s the worst thing that has ever happened to McNulty? Not losing touch with his kids. Not fucking up every relationship he’s ever had.

No, the worse thing that we’ve seen happen to McNulty was when Kima got shot and McNulty thought she was going to die and it was all his fault. Like Winston Smith and his fear of rats, the thing that scares McNulty most, the thing that would tear him right in half, is to be responsible for getting a police killed.

Which brings me back to Sydnor. Who has been out doing surveillance in unfamiliar neighborhoods, in plainclothes, stopping at intersections to peer into a map…in a rental car, courtesy of McNulty’s shadow department. They made a big deal about the police getting rental cars, but as anybody who lives in a carjacking kind of city knows, stopping at an intersection in a rental car in a sketchy neighborhood to focus on a map is like wearing a sign that says “Please shoot me and steal my car.”

The camera shot from the passenger seat, showing Sydnor with his nose in his map and the open driver’s side window next to him, I expected him to get popped right then.

And then there’s the train, which Sydnor got a good look at through the binoculars.

I wouldn’t put money on Sydnor catching a bullet, but at this point I am pretty much expecting it.

I need to lie down.

Didn’t write much last week, I know. I watch my Wire On Demand, spend the week thinking about it, then post something after you proles without superpremium cable get caught up. And as you know, the new episode goes up a mere two hours after the last one airs for the first time.

And after watching Ep. 8, I felt…as though…how to put this? As though a little kid had walked up to me in a convenience store and put one in my dome.

Requiescat in pace, Omar. I knew it was coming, and yet, when it did, it still flattened me. That’s saying something.

Wire mirroring reality #n: Ray Nagin acts like Clay Davis

WWL TV did a piece on Ray Nagin Thursday night about his schedule.  What was he doing with his time, was he in Jamaica most of the year, were his kids in Houston, and so on.

Typical FOIA journalism.Only thing, See-Ray went coocoo for Cocoa Puffs.  He went ballistic, he went off his meds, he lost his religion, he went ape shit.

He acted like Ray Nagin, but for no good reason.