More on jury nullification, this time from Pandagon

I’m a day late to catch this post Amanda did on the The Wire, the black hole we call the “the War on Drugs,” and jury nullification. Neither did I see this Time article by Burns, Lehane, Pelecanos, Price and Simon. I’m on my lunch hour without time to flesh any of this out but I wanted to put it up since we usually have some decent discussions on Friday, and jury nullification has come up a couple of times recently.

David Simon interview on Fresh Air today

Listen on yer radio or here

h/t michaela

Best Dramatic Series

The Wire has been awarded Best Dramatic Series honors by the Writers Guild of America.  The 2008 WGA awards were announced yesterday:

DRAMATIC SERIES

THE WIRE, Written by Ed Burns, Chris Collins, Dennis Lehane, David Mills, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon, William F. Zorzi; HBO

Simon, New Orleans, and the Davis Rogan connection

First, to set the stage, the standard NuPac head shot. Davis Rogan, Ben Franklin High School yearbook, 1982:

Gus, Omar on NPR’s Fresh Air

Spurred by this comment to Nancy’s newest post, I dug up the recent Terry Gross interviews of Clark Johnson (Gus) on 1/21/08 and Michael K. Williams (Omar) on 1/22/08. I enjoyed them both immensely.

I might also add that these Fresh Air shows (and other NPR offerings) are available as free podcasts on iTunes.

Apropos of angry

As I was stumbling through the links to the links to the links, I read this Rolling Stone interview for the first time.

Yeah, it’s over a year old but there’s not a blogger at this joint that doesn’t think about New Orleans every single day. Indeed, it’s part of the glue that brought this particularly various happy few together. I also think it’s relevant to the entire ongoing discussion here and elsewhere, about the show, about the media, about America, about all the chasms we look at each other across.

“In a lot of ways, New Orleans is Baltimore but it can carry a tune. I thought Katrina was literally America having to pause for a moment and contemplate the other America that somehow, tragically, Americans forgot. It’s like America looking across the chasm saying, “Oh, are you still here? Oh, and you’re wet. And you’re angry.”

Down in the hole with Steve Earle

Stumbled across this piece at Spinner.com:

Steve Earle discusses Way Down in the Hole, the show, and his role as Waylon.

“Playing Waylon is like going to a 12 step meeting and getting paid for it.”

What was his favorite Wire moment?

It’s not all work for Earle, however. The singer-songwriter is an avid fan of the show and is quick to respond when asked of his favorite moment. “In the fourth season when Bodie realizes that the game is rigged and tries to get out … and he does,” Earle says. “It was heartbreaking, but it was real.”

“The Wire is dissent”

Must read:

Simon’s comment on Yglesias’ post in response to the Atlantic article referenced below.

I would argue that people comfortable with the economic and political trends in the United States right now — and thinking that the nation and its institutions are equipped to respond meaningfully to the problems depicted with some care and accuracy on The Wire (we reported each season fresh, we did not write solely from memory) — well, perhaps they’re playing with the tuning knobs when the back of the appliance is in flames.

“There’s a Wire in every fuckin’ city.”

via Jim’s site,

excerpts from New York Magazine’s interview with Michael K. Williams (Omar)

Do you think The Wire’s helped to shed light on the darker side of Baltimore?
What I really hope the show’s done is struck a chord with all the hoods in all the cities of this country. Because, really, what The Wire is, is an American story, an American social problem. There’s a Wire in every fuckin’ city.

…

Can we expect any big surprises to come our way?
Oh yeah, a lot of big surprises. My hint towards that question is to keep your eyes on the children. Watch those kids. They’re gonna really take it to another level this year. But all I can really say is, brace yourself.

Note also Jim’s collection of links to other new articles on the start of the season, in particular, The Atlantic’s Angriest Man in Television piece on Simon.

So, where are we?

[WARNING: This is not spoiler material, as it's already been made public, but if you don't want to know anything ahead of time, don't continue.]

I’m curious to know what everyone here is thinking about on the eve of Season 5. As we all know, the vast scope of the series and size of the cast precludes a lot of the perfect closure we are accustomed to getting spoon-fed by other shows, so there’s a lot from previous seasons that we’ll never see resolved. That said, be it speculation, wish list, worst case scenarios, favorite characters, storylines, whatever, tell us what you think.