The Wire

I pirated the new Justin Timberlake yesterday. It's kinda monstrous. I'm not gonna write 6,000 words on dude on this blog. But i'll just say this: Having Timbaland produce the album was genius, because Timbo is a genius. In fact, as my niggas Larry pointed out, I might have screwed up not puttin sun on the Music Dude Top 7 joint. Timbo is on some serious ish throughout this album.

And you know what? Yes, JT is a white boy. Yes, JT is a gay acting white boy. Yes JT is a black-approval-whore and culture-pirate. But the young white dude studied. And the young white dude is ambitious. The album -- when it's good -- is smoking. He has some really corny joints, especially the track where he tries to get TOO soulful and take us to the church and get all social on us. Its some of the weakest music I've ever heard. But when him and Timbo do that r&b/funk...like the Godfather of Soul once said, they're "Doing it to death." Kudos to the studious white boy and this new R&B banger.

Now that thats done. Lets get to the Wire. I had planned to novel-blog about, but I spent 5 minutes responding to one of my niggas emails...so I'm just posting that. Lazy? No. Synergizing? Yes.

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Anyways...this season is shaping up to be, perhaps, its best ever.Which is gonna be hard, seeing that Stringer was always the mostcompelling figure. And neither Marlo or Chris are characters or actorson Stringer's level. I do like how Chris has a lot of sway over Marlo.Ever since last year, Marlo consistently consults him big time ondecisions. Like when he got a call from that girl Avon sent to get himcaught up. He turned to Chris and was like, "What you think aboutthat?" Chris just shrugged. And I like how niggas on the street arepetrified of this dude, too. Like when Lex noticed it was Snoop (whowould be a pretty girl, if she didnt dress, act and talk like aman...check her smile next time. It's pretty) in the dark playgroundand tried to book, then saw ur boy..he was like, "Chris, I, I..." Dudewasnt havin it tho.

What interests me is that Marlo's righthand manalso carries out most of his muscle work. That doesnt seem like asmart move to me. But the way theyre stashing these bodies takes somuch discipline, maybe they dont trust anyone else.Marlo and them got Lester and the crew dooped, tho. All that talkabout how they're no Barksdale crew..but ,maybe they are and more.Think about this...Marlo and them showed more fortitude and won thestaring contest with Barksdale (what I also thought was hot, was howMarlo never sent his stuff to Amsterdam)...and then took overeverything when the time was right, without inviting a bunch of policeattention.

On one of the Wire previews, the guy that plays Daniels made a reallygood point about the Wire's overall steez with its casting. He said,"You always see the black criminal. But what u never see on televisionor in Hollywood is the black criminal genius." And then the image ofStringer flashed on the screen.And that's when it hit me...the reason I can watch the Wire and notfeel like "same ol', same ol'" is because Simon and Burns' portrayalof these black crooks isn't negligent and agenda-driven. These guysare journalists, who have covered courts and cops, etc...so they knowthe sometimes incredible amount of forethought, discipline, ingenuityand smarts it takes to do what some of these guys do. Its still heinous, but don't trivialize it. It's eye-opening actually.But then Wendell -- the dude that plays Bunk -- on the show, he waslike, if some of these guys took that energy and intellect and appliedit to something else...there's no telling. Which is very true andsaid, but then, what arena other than sports and hiphop do AfricanAmerican men not face the steepest of uphill climbs? Ya know? Theyrestars in the drug game. Sad stuff, but something the Wire deals within such an intelligent way.

I still hate Calcutti and this whole Mayoral thing. His charactergrates on me. His face, his voice, everything. And for some reason,they made him an even bigger prick this season. I watched the Wire 3times yesterday. And after the first viewing, I just fast forwardedthrough all his scenes. ALTHOUGH, I like the Norman character (hischief of staff). I like his 'tude. It's funny.The kids stories will be great. They were goin this direction thefirst season with Poot and Wallace and Bodie...except, theseyoungsters are actually in school. The preview show set up theirstories nicely and it looks like it'll be the first show thataccurately depicts what happens to urban youth in the public schoolsystem.