Michael K. Williams, the scar-faced character actor best known for playing street-smart hardmen like Chalky White in Broadwalk Empire and Omar Little in The Wire, has been cast to star as Ol’ Dirty Bastard in a new biopic of the late rapper’s life.

SEE ALSO: Faces Of Obama’s Health Care Reform

According to an exclusive Entertainment Weekly report, Williams, 45, will play ODB, the mercurial Wu-Tang Clan rapper born Russell Jones who had multiple run-ins with the law, substance abuse problems and an infamously unhinged rap persona.

‘LIKE’ NewsOne’s FB Page To Stay Up On Black News From Around The World
http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FNewsOneOfficial&width=600&height=290&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&border_color&stream=false&header=true&appId=126014200784041

The upcoming film, titled Dirty White Boy, focuses on an unlikely relationship between ODB and Jarred Weisfeld, a 22-year-old VH1 production assistant who became the hip-hop star’s manager during the rapper’s three-year jail stint in the early 2000′s.

The ambitious and apparently persuasive Weisfeld helped orchestrate ODB’s comeback, which was cut short when the Wu-Tang Clan co-founder died from a drug overdose at age 35 in 2004.

Joaquín Baca-Asay, the cinematographer on We Own the Night, Roger Dodger and Jay-Z’s video for “99 Problems,” has been tapped to make his feature directorial debut, according to reports.

The role of Weisfeld has not been cast yet. However, it may prove to be an attractive prospect for the right actor.

Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to play opposite Williams?

Still, since early reports describe the film as being told from the perspective of the Weisfeld character, it also makes one wonder if Williams’ role will be overshadowed by whoever’s selected as the white protagonist.

Read more here.

SEE ALSO:

Venus Williams Is About To Make A Comeback

Memphis Cop Allegedly Broadcast Sex Over Radio (VIDEO)

Brett Johnson is a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based writer and the founder of the music and culture blog VeryArtistical.com.

Pierce has opened a convenience store that serves healthy food in New Orleans and plans to open several other healthy grocery stores in low income neighborhoods that usually have no options for healthy food.

‘LIKE’ NewsOne’s FB Page To Stay Up On Black News From Around The World

The New York Times reports:

In intriguing — and intended — ways, his effort to bring more-nutritious fare to an urban food desert parallels the TV series, which charts New Orleans’s struggle to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.

“Bringing fresh food into these areas helps create economic growth,” Mr. Pierce said. “But it also helps people understand that there’s value in eating better. It’s not something that’s only available in a better neighborhood.”

But grocery stores have not rebounded in the same way. Before the storm, there were 30 in New Orleans; today, there are 21. Most that have reopened are in wealthier neighborhoods: a Tulane University survey in 2007, the latest data available, found that nearly 60 percent of low-income residents had to travel more than three miles to reach a supermarket, though only 58 percent owned a car.

Read More At The New York Times

SEE ALSO:

George Washington Chicken Nugget Sells For $8, 100

Woman Found With 30 Pounds Of Cocaine Hiding In Cake Mix Boxes At Miami Airport

Obama praised several sports figures, including Jeremy Lin, who he claimed he knew about since Lin’s Harvard days due U.S. Secretary of Education who played for Harvard where Lin played. He also praised his favorite team, the Chicago Bulls and Derrick Rose.

Also receiving praise were L.A. Clippers, Chris Paul, who he claimed he crossed over and Blake Griffin as well as the critically acclaimed TV show, “The Wire” whcih he called “one of the greatest shows of all time” and his favorite character, Omar Little.

Grantland reports:

Obama: And I said, man, Blake Griffin is unbelievable, and you guys seem to be really clicking. I said, the only thing is you got to tell Blake to just take that 12-, 15-footer when he gets it because he’s got a good stroke, but he always looks like he’s hesitating a little bit because he wants to go inside. And if he starts getting that shot like Karl Malone, he’ll be unstoppable.

BS: Settle an office debate. Best Wire character of all time?

Obama: It’s got to be Omar, right? I mean, that guy is unbelievable, right?

BS: We might break this down as like a March Madness bracket, and I think he’s going to be the no. 1 seed. [Laughter.] Everyone is in on Omar, it seems like.

Obama: He’s got to be the no. 1 seed. I mean, what a combination. And that was one of the best shows of all time.

Read More At Grantland

SEE ALSO:

Obama Waives Indefinite Detention For Citizens From NDAA

Massachusetts School Serves “KKK” Chicken Tenders

Sohn is following in the steps of “The Wire” characters Dennis “Cutty” Wise and Howard “Bunny” Colvin and is working with disadvantaged youth in Baltimore to help them lead positive lives

The Washington Post reports:

This was late in 2009, during the first session of ReWired for Life, a program Sohn had conceived of years earlier and devoted herself to building after “The Wire” signed off. She hadn’t been ready to leave the show behind, neither what it stood for nor the Baltimore streets on which it had filmed. It was more than that, though. “I had an extraordinarily strong sense of purpose,” she says, in the same half-purr, half-growl voice familiar to fans of “The Wire.” “My entire life had become about this.”

Read More At The Washington Post

SEE ALSO:

The Simpsons Go Couture

Should Apple Be Boycotted?

Felicia “Snoop” Pearson, 31, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute heroin, a day before her trial was set to begin. Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill accepted the plea, suspending a seven-year sentence with credit for time served and ordering three years of supervised probation with provisions for out-of-state travel for work.

The plea allows Pearson to move on with her acting career, instead of spending more than a year with charges hanging over her, attorney Benjamin C. Sutley said outside the courthouse.

“I can’t say she would have been found not guilty,” Sutley said. But Pearson interrupted, saying “I would have been found not guilty.”

Pearson was one of 64 people charged in March in “Operation Usual Suspects.” The federal indictment states that since 2008, members of the conspiracy bought heroin from New York and marijuana from California and sold the drugs on the streets of Baltimore. As part of the conspiracy, the indictment alleges, members discussed how those who failed to perform required tasks were dealt with violently.

Pearson was caught on a wiretap conspiring with Shawn Johnson and Jeff Gibbs, who bought heroin in bulk from New York and distributed the drugs in Baltimore, according to a statement of charges read aloud in court by prosecutor Rebecca Finn. Johnson paid Pearson to store drugs and money, including drug proceeds, at her apartment in the city, Finn said.

When another member of the alleged conspiracy was kidnapped by rival dealers, Johnson told him to go to Pearson’s apartment to get money pay a ransom, Finn said. Police interrupted the abduction outside Pearson’s apartment and found heroin in the abducted man’s car, she said. Informants also told investigators that Pearson occasionally sold heroin for Johnson, Finn said.

Some of the people involved in the wider case helped take care of Pearson when she was a teen, but she has now “learned a valuable lesson about how some loyalties you keep and others drag you down,” Sutley said.

Pearson said she knows everyone in Baltimore. Asked how she’ll avoid falling into the same situation in the future, Pearson said, “I’m moving to L.A.”

Pearson, who wore retro-style glasses with a black-and-white checked shirt and a red paisley bow tie to court, said she is working on two movies. She later updated her followers on Twitter, “I’m FREE.”

“The Wire,” which ran from 2002 to 2008, was filmed in Baltimore and put a spotlight on the city’s struggle with poverty and drug violence through the stories of the city’s police, drug organizations, schools, politicians and media. Pearson’s character, which shares the nickname “Snoop,” knocks off several people for the fictitious Stanfield drug gang.

This was not Pearson’s first brush with the law. She was convicted of second-degree murder in a slaying committed when she was 14. She served five years of an eight-year sentence and was released in 2000. Pearson was arrested on a minor drug charge in 2008 when police went to her home to pick her up for refusing to cooperate as a witness in a murder trial. She was found not guilty.

RELATED STORIES

“Wire” Creator: Snoop’s Arrest Due To Lack Of Black Acting Roles

Snoop From “The Wire” Arrested In Baltimore Drug Raid

“The Attorney-General’s kind remarks are noted and appreciated,” he wrote. “I’ve spoken to Ed Burns and we are prepared to go to work on season six of The Wire if the Department of Justice is equally ready to reconsider and address its continuing prosecution of our misguided, destructive and dehumanising drug prohibition.”

Simon further claimed that the government’s current anti-drug policies are “nothing more or less than a war on our underclass.”

Read The Whole Story

RELATED STORIES

Fiending! Attorney General Holder Begs “The Wire” For More Shows

Eric Holder Joins “The Wire” Actors To Fight Drug Abuse

RELATED: Foster Child Defies Odds, Earns Diploma, Degree At Same Time

“I want to speak directly to Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon: Do another season of ‘The Wire’,” Holder said, drawing laughter and applause from the audience. “That’s actually at a minimum. … If you don’t do a season, do a movie.  We’ve done HBO movies, this is a series that deserves a movie. I want another season or I want a movie. I have a lot of power Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon.”

Read the rest on Reuters.com.

Yes, major depression can hit when one’s favorite show goes off the air, but perhaps this was not quite the right venue for Attorney General Eric Holder to beg for the return of “The Wire.” It’s understandable that he really loved the show, but it was fictionalized.  He was meeting with “The Wire” stars to draw attention to real-life child victims of drug crimes, which is more important.

Hopefully, all the laughter Eric Holder has created over pleading for “The Wire” to return — some say ordering — will make more people think seriously about the concrete issue he sought to address. According to the Justice Department press release for this new program, “Children exposed to drug abuse are more than 50 percent more likely to be arrested as juveniles.” Attorney General Eric Holder beseeching for more seasons of “The Wire” was cute, but this is no laughing matter.

RELATED: House GOP: “Healthy School Lunches Too Expensive”

Start Gallery

This Tuesday, Holder will take part in a panel discussion with the head of the DEA, Pierce and Sohn to discuss the effects drug abuse has on families in Washington D.C.

RELATED STORIES

“The Wire” Reimagined As A Dickens Novel

“Wire” Creator: Snoop’s Arrest Due To Lack Of Black Acting Roles

BALTIMORE — A woman who played a Baltimore drug gang assassin in HBO’s “The Wire” has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to sell heroin.

Felicia “Snoop” Pearson entered the plea Tuesday morning during an arraignment in Baltimore Circuit Court. An Aug. 9 jury trial date was set.

Pearson is one of 64 people charged in March in “Operation Usual Suspects,” a joint state-federal prosecution of an alleged east Baltimore drug gang. She is charged in an indictment with conspiring with two men to distribute heroin.

The 30-year-old Pearson was released weeks later on $50,000 bond with electronic monitoring that has allowed her to leave the state to pursue her acting career.

She declined to comment after the arraignment. Attorney Benjamin Sutley says it’s too early to know if the three will be tried together.

RELATED:

Snoop from “The Wire” maintains her innocence in drug arrest

Baltimore’s police commissioner, Frederick H. Bealefeld has made a harsh public criticism of the HBO TV Show, “The Wire” for the way it portrays Baltimore. The Baltimore Sun reports:

“I heard all this stuff about, ‘Well there’s crime shows about L.A., about New York, about Miami,’” Bealefeld said. “You know what Miami gets in their crime show? They get detectives that look like models, and they drive around in sports cars. And you know what New York gets, they get these incredibly tough prosecutors, competant cops that solve the most crazy, complicated cases.”

“What Baltimore gets is this reinforced notion that it’s a city full of hopelessness, despair and dysfunction. There was very little effort – beyond self-serving – to highlight the great and wonderful things happening here, and to indict the whole population, the criminal justice system, the school system.”

Read The Whole Story

RELATED STORIES

“The Wire” Comes To Harvard

What Obama Learned From The Wire

Reddick, 41, who currently stars on the Fox series, “Fringe,” is no stranger to music, having attended the prestigious Eastman School of Music, where he studied classical composition. Reddick, who plays piano always wanted to be a musician, but the acting jobs came first, which allowed him to take care of his family.

Read more at TheRoot.com

Two years after its cancellation, “The Wire” has been given the respect given to authors like Dickens and Shakespeare, Hemingway or Langston Hughes. It has been given its own class at Harvard. Not only has it been given an undergraduate class at Harvard, but in this spring, “The Wire” will be taught at Harvard Law School by one of its most prestigious professors, Charles Ogletree.

Ogletree had a conference at Harvard yesterday to announce the course and had actors, Jamie Hector and Michael K. Williams, who played Marlo Stanfield and Omar Little on the show come and speak, along with Donnie Andrews, who was a notorious Baltimore criminal, who was the inspiration for Omar Little.

They discussed The Wire as a reflection of America that is hardly seen. Reverend Eugene Rivers claimed that every Black person should see it. The panel discussed the elements of “The Wire” that related directly to sociology, the drug war, lack of jobs, city politics education and the media, that “The Wire” covered in its five seasons.

It was amazing to hear how close the actors where to their characters. Michael K. Williams said the hardest thing he had to do in the show was to kill Idris Elba’s character, Stringer Bell. He said he felt conflicted about doing it and felt that it promoted Black on Black crime by having one of the smartest characters on the show be killed, one he felt a close connection to not only as a fellow actor, but as a character as well.

Williams said that when his character was killed it was like his best friend died and that for a while he answered to the name Omar more than he answered to his own name.

Jamie Hector described his character Marlo as a sociopath, but said that the students in his Brooklyn theater group “Tomorrow’s Future” described Marlo as a businessman. Hector also said that in his view, despite the fact that Marlo was never convicted, he was defeated in the end after losing his man power and lifestyle.

Both Hector and Williams defended “The Wire” against people who said it promoted negative stereotypes against Black men the city if Baltimore. Hector cited Season 4 of “The Wire” as a way that the program showed how children turn into criminals rather than just displaying the stereotype.

Ogletree did a good job of explaining why Harvard Law School students should learn about “The Wire.” Those students will be the prosecutors, District Attorneys,  and defense lawyers who will have to deal with the policies of the drug war and the over-incarceration of African American males. Some others will become politicians who will be in charge of giving jobs and funding schools. If not for a show like “The Wire,” many of these people would have no clue about the struggle urban African Americans endure due to the drug trade, inferior education, corrupt politicians and lack of jobs.

Ogletree said that many writers, and actors from “The Wire,”and real people from Baltimore will address the class this spring. He also says he’s trying to open the class up to students from other graduate schools so that future teachers, journalists and businessmen can also learn about how what they do affects the poor and how the poor affect them.

Like Dickens and Richard Wright, “The Wire” provides a fictitious reality that is closer to the truth and reveals more about society than most journalism or history books. Ogletree’s class will be one of the first classes to give the television show sociological, political and academic analysis, but surely not the last, as the show will stand as a time capsule of our society for centuries to come.

RELATED STORIES

Why Harvard Is Teaching A Course On “The Wire”

OPINION: Why Elite Colleges Offer Courses On “The Wire”

Take this scene in a Baltimore housing project from the show’s first season: Two teenage drug dealers marvel at the ingenuity of their boneless Chicken McNuggets and imagine the inventor who must have become incredibly rich off his creation. An older dealer, D’Angelo, mocks their naivete, explaining that the man who invented the McNugget is just a guy in the McDonald’s basement who dreamed up a moneymaking idea for the real players.

To D’Angelo, the formal labor market is fundamentally unfair. People are not rewarded according to their true worth, and powerful institutions regularly exploit those with less power. Social inequality is the inevitable result — the McNugget inventor doesn’t get his due. “It ain’t about right. It’s about money,” D’Angelo tells the young dealers.

Read more at TheRoot

RELATED:

Harvard will have a class on The Wire

Share this post on Facebook! CLICK HERE:

Delonte West denies having sex with Lebron’s mom [from HelloBeautiful.com]

Trey Songz denies dating Lauren London and introducing her to his mom [from Hellobeautiful.com]

Is Melyssa Ford right about Essence [from Theurbandaily.com]

Kat Stacks allegedly infected with Hepatitis C [from Theurbandaily.com]

LL Cool J nominated again for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [from Theurbandaily.com]

Idris Elba is in a hotel suite at the MGM Detroit Grand talking up his new movie “Takers” as part of his first extensive movie publicity tour.

And if the 37-year-old British actor has his way, it will be his last, too.

“I’m not good at it,” says Elba, who by the time he hit Detroit earlier this month had already visited Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Miami, and still needed to travel to Las Vegas and Atlanta.

Read more at DetroitNews

Click here to view photos:

Start Gallery

RELATED:

Former The Wire Star Idris Elba Taking Over Hollywood

Idris Elba Hosts HBCU Students On South African Tour

After spending most of his years working on the critically-acclaimed series “The Wire,” Idris Elba is a man in demand in Hollywood.

Currently, he is prepping for the release of his new movie “Takers.”

To find out the new roles he’s been recently casted in and to see a gallery of the popular star:

Read more at our sister site Hello Beautiful

Click here to view photos:

Start Gallery

RELATED:

Idris Elba Hosts HBCU Students On South African Tour

Idris Elba Calls For British TV To Diversify

From MSNBC:

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating, depressing debacle whose ramifications are still felt today. Lives were lost, homes were destroyed. You’d think “Treme,” a new HBO series that takes place in New Orleans in the months after Katrina, would be a downer, that viewers would be treated to a humbling, depressing television experience. You’d be wrong. “Treme,” through two episodes, is among the most uplifting TV series I’ve ever seen.

This is one reason why “Treme” has the potential to be an all-time great show, to place among the best in the modern era and, dare I say it, possibly surpass its predecessor, “The Wire,” in terms of quality.

Text continues after gallery …

David Simon is the brains behind both “Treme” and “The Wire,” and there is no human more capable of telling the story of Katrina and its aftermath than he is. Obviously, any hyperbolic claims concerning “Treme’s” legacy are premature. Rarely is a TV series fully formed at the start, and a stellar pilot isn’t necessarily a recipe for sustained greatness or longevity. And, yet, is there any person alive who inspires confidence in a viewership like Simon?

Click here to read more.

RELATED STORIES

HBO Gives “Treme” A Second Season After One Episode

“The Wire” Creator Takes on New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — An HBO spokesman says David Mills, a veteran television writer who worked on “ER” and “The Wire,” has died in New Orleans.

HBO spokesman Diego Aldana says Mills died Tuesday night but didn’t know the cause of death.

Mills also wrote for “The Corner” and “Homicide: Life on the Street” among other shows.

He is co-writer and co-executive producer of the new HBO series “Treme.”

The drama is set to premiere April 11. The series is set in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and is being filmed in the city.

The cast of The Wire were featured on the cover of 2008 issue of GIANT magazine. Take a look at the photos from the cover shoot below:

Start Gallery

Click here to read the article on GIANTlife.

RELATED STORIES

What Obama Learned From The Wire

OPINION: Why Elite Colleges Offer Courses On “The Wire”

From Slate.com:

Among the police officers and drug dealers and stickup men and politicians and dockworkers and human smugglers and teachers and students and junkies and lawyers and journalists who populate the late, great HBO series The Wire, there is one academic. His name is David Parenti and he teaches social work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He is not a major character, but he appears throughout the show’s fourth season—an earnest, well-meaning man defined in part by his naïveté about the inner-city kids whose lives he wants to improve. As for Johns Hopkins, Baltimore’s best-known university, it only comes up as a place where the show’s police officers can get cushy campus security jobs after they retire. Academia, in other words, is not a culture that the show’s creators, David Simon and Ed Burns, betray much interest in exploring.

Text continues after gallery…
Black Hollywood

Start Gallery

Academics, on the other hand, can’t seem to get enough of The Wire.

Click here to read more.

RELATED:

What Obama Learned From “The Wire”

Harvard Will Have Class On “The Wire”

“The Wire” Creator Takes On New Orleans

From The Harvard Crimson

Harvard students will be able to watch the “The Wire” for class credit next year.

At a panel last night, stars of the HBO hit series joined Harvard professors in discussing the applications of the show—which depicts the struggles of urban life in Baltimore—in understanding and combating real urban social issues.

“‘The Wire’ has done more to enhance our understanding of the systemic urban inequality that constrains the lives of the poor than any published study” Sociology Professor William J. Wilson said.

African American studies chair Professor Evelyn B. Higginbotham said that there would be a new course in which Wilson will use “The Wire” as a case study for poverty in America.

“I’m going to do whatever I need to do to get into that class. I’m excited,” said Martin A. Kessler ’13.

Attendee Sarah V. Chace ’80, who is also a fan of the show, said she already uses “The Wire” as a case study in a class on community leadership she teaches at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven. She said she came to the event to hear more about how other academics and the actors view the role of “The Wire” in depicting urban life.

Read The Whole Story

Related

What Obama Has Learned From “The Wire”

The Wire Creator Talks War On Drugs With Bill Maher

The Wire Creator Talks Drugs and Poverty

The Wire Creator Takes on New Orleans

Here Is Jamie Hector’s Statement Regarding The Incident

“I first want to make it clear that the shooting incident yesterday did not take place at my home, nor did it involve me, my wife, nor any of the invited guests.  Although none of the guests were hurt physically, the trauma of this experience is unforgettable.   My condolences go out to the families of the victims.

I grew up in Brooklyn and this kind of violence is one of the reasons I founded Moving Mountains, Inc., a non-profit youth organization that redirects talented youth through the arts. I focus their energy on positive alternatives in an effort to deter them from this type of violence, which takes place on the streets everyday.  We work to provide them with the life skills that allow them to make good choices for themselves and prepare them to lead positive, violence free lives.”

Jamie also adds,  ”to be honest it was a disturbing feeling, but it also showed that we have a lot of work to do, we have to change how people think in order to change what they do”

From The New York Daily News

A made-for-tv gun battle erupted outside a Brooklyn baby shower for the wife of a star of the HBO crime series “The Wire” Sunday, killing one teen and wounding two men, cops said.

Gunmen unloaded nearly 50 bullets outside the party for the wife of actor Jamie Hector – who played violent druglord Marlo Stanfield on the hit series – then tried to finish off one of the wounded men outside a hospital.

“What a gun battle,” a police source told the Daily News. “They have been watching too much TV.”

Police and paramedics raced to E. 93rd St. in East Flatbush about 1:20 a.m.

Cops found evidence of a running gun battle with at least 46 shell casings dotting about half the block beginning at Avenue B.

Two guns were recovered, but no suspects were arrested after the violence that spilled out from the party.

Linton Williams, 17, of Brooklyn, died at the scene.

As the smoke cleared, someone helped 32-year-old Andrew Filson into a car and raced him to Downstate Medical Center.

When the shooting victim got out of the car at the hospital, another vehicle rolled up and someone inside started firing.

Police sources said Filson was hit at least once at the hospital.

Emergency workers put him into an ambulance and rushed him to Kings County Hospital, a trauma center where he was listed in critical condition yesterday.

Walter Parker, 22, was shot in the leg outside the party. He flagged down an ambulance and was taken to Brookdale University Hospital, where he was in stable condition.

Hector, a Brooklyn native who has also starred in TV shows “Heroes,” “Jericho” and “The Game,” was said to be at the baby shower for some time.

It was unclear whether the actor was still there when the bullets started flying – or why the gunmen targeted the three victims. Hector’s spokesman didn’t respond to calls for comment.

Read The Whole Story

This is a pretty good interview with Bill Maher and David Simon, the creator of The Wire. They discuss the end to the “War on Drugs,” as well as the fall of newspapers.

Watch the Interview

What Obama Learned From The Wire

David Simon, one of the creators of The Wire was recently on the Bill Moyers show, talking about his show the Wire, the Mexican drug war, the economy, education, drugs and several other issues.

Interestingly enough, most of the issues that are going on in the news today are related to issues that were covered in The Wire

Follow the link to watch David Simon on the Bill Moyers Show

Part 1

Part 2

From Politico

President Barack Obama can’t stand to be without his “Entourage.”

Call it a guilty pleasure, or maybe it just rings familiar to him. The HBO series about an aspiring actor features a fast-talking agent named Ari, based on the real-life brother of Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

For less R-rated fare, he tunes into “Hannah Montana” or “SpongeBob SquarePants” in the White House with his daughters. Aides said he would have watched Monday night’s NCAA championship on TiVo on his way home from Iraq Tuesday night.

But some of Obama’s choices definitely have an edgier bent — such as the HBO drama “The Wire.” His favorite character is Omar, a gay stickup artist who steals from drug pushers to give to the poor. (“That’s not an endorsement. He’s not my favorite person, but he’s a fascinating character,” Obama said last year.)

What Obama Learned From His Favorite Show, The Wire

“When you hear he likes ‘Entourage,’ you have to go, ‘That figures,’” said Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University. “Anything Obama does is cool by definition. He’s the Internet president, he’s the BlackBerry president, and now, I suppose, he could be called the HBO president.” Obama likes “Entourage” so much he even rearranged his campaign schedule not to miss an episode.

“We would talk about ‘Entourage’ all the time,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

“A couple of times during the campaign, we would have these Sunday night calls at the same time as ‘Entourage,’” Gibbs recalled. “I remember one time I e-mailed him because the call was scheduled for the last 15 minutes of ‘Entourage’ and I said, ‘Just be late and we can just watch “Entourage” and still get on and do the call.’

What Obama Learned From The Wire

David Simon, creator of the critically acclaimed television shows “The Wire” and “Homicide: Life on the Street” is in New Orleans working on his next project.

Named after the Creole neighborhood known for its rich musical history, “Treme” (truh-MAY’) is a prospective TV series geared for HBO that aims to capture New Orleans’ heritage and traditions as residents struggle to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

However, Simon is quick to say it’s not just another Katrina project.

“This is an American story,” he said in an interview from outside a jazz club where the hourlong pilot was being filmed Wednesday. “This is about an American city trying to pick itself up and doing it without a great deal of help.”

To tell the story, Simon abandons almost all the backdrops New Orleans is best known for — the French Quarter and Garden District included — and gets into grittier, lesser-known neighborhoods he says have been “under-chronicled.”

“We had to get inside New Orleans traditions,” he said. “You can’t do that from the French Quarter.”

He said it was important to capture the city’s dysfunction as well as its grace.

“New Orleans is not the most efficient, best-run metropolis in America. It never has been,” he said. “But it’s a city with an ornate and essential culture and musical tradition that is maybe one of the most original things America ever invented.”

He said the story should resonate with Americans considering the recent economic downturn. He compared Americans’ faith and reliance on the nation’s economic structure to New Orleans’ faith and reliance in the city’s levee system, both of which have proven to be “more fragile than anyone ever assumed.”

“It’s a metaphor for where we are in America right now,” he said, standing outside Vaughan’s Lounge, a music club near one of the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods, the Lower 9th Ward. He said the pilot would keep the name of the club. He even employed the lounge’s regular doorman to play one in the show.

Simon said he had been wanting to tell a story in New Orleans for more than a decade before Katrina, which hit in August 2005, but “couldn’t find a hook.”

Much of his “Treme” writing team is from New Orleans. It includes resident Tom Piazza, author of the nonfiction “Why New Orleans Matters” and the novel “City of Refuge,” and Lolis Eric Elie, a reporter for The Times-Picayune newspaper. Elie also produced a documentary, “Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans,” currently airing on public television outlets nationwide.

Video: Katrina’s Untold Race War

Other writers include George Pelecanos, a crime-novelist and writer for “The Wire,” and David Mills, a screenwriter for “Homicide,” ”NYPD Blue” and “The Wire.”

Eric Overmyer, who lives in New Orleans and whose TV credits include “St. Elsewhere,” ”Homicide” and “The Wire,” is a friend of Simon’s and a co-executive-producer on “Treme.”

A host of locals also made the cast. New Orleans-born actor Wendell Pierce, who played Detective William “Bunk” Moreland on “The Wire,” plays a “Treme” musician, a role he called “a dream come true.”

“Being from here, I’ve always wanted to be a musician, but I was always the actor hanging out with the musicians,” he said with a laugh on the set, trombone in hand. Between takes, Pierce practiced with Kermit Ruffins, a trumpet player featured in a scene that included a cameo by singer-songwriter Elvis Costello.

“That happens all the time here,” Simon said. “You’ll have musicians come from all over to see and hear these guys play. It’s just a regular night in New Orleans.”

Simon also cast New Orleans resident Phyllis Montana LeBlanc, who was featured in Spike Lee’s HBO documentary, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.”

The cast includes Steve Zahn from the Tom Hanks movie “That Thing You Do!”, Clarke Peters from “The Wire” and Kim Dickens from HBO’s “Deadwood.”

Simon and company have been in New Orleans for several weeks filming. The hope is “Treme” will be picked up by HBO, which has asked to see the pilot and a handful of scripts to judge before going on with a full first season.

If picked up, it will be the second time in three years a major television network has put New Orleans and Katrina in the spotlight. Fox’s post-Katrina detective drama “K-Ville” aired during the 2007-08 season but was canceled due to low ratings and the disruption of last year’s writers strike.

5,000 Killed in Katrina Aftermath Says Cynthia McKinney

Its officially been one year that The Wire has been off the air. Erin Evans over at The Root has a good article on Wire withdrawal. Still we have to remember that one of The Wire’s biggest fans, Barack Obama is now running the country and is caught up in his own drama with situations and characters so interesting and complex it could’ve been written by David Simon. Here are some things that Barack Obama could’ve learned from The Wire. If the world was David Simon’s Baltimore, who would Obama be? Who would be Clay Davis and McNulty?

Foreign Policy

If Obama was watching The Wire carefully, he could learn a lot about foreign policy from two of the major characters from the first three seasons, Avon Barksdale and his cohort, Stringer Bell. While Avon was always willing to go to war for territory and fight over pride, Stringer was more pragmatic, realizing that war was bad for business. Like Obama, Stringer was willing to negotiate with his enemies, including Proposition Joe and Marlo Stansfield. Rather than war with other drug dealers over territory, Stringer built an alliance of huslters from both the east and west side to share a common package and economic interest.

Obama could take Stringer’s role and avoid wars unless they are absolutely necessary, negotiate with countries previously hostile to the US and build alliances with other countries. He should not however be shady and conniving, the characteristics which led to Stringer’s death.

Drugs

Addiction and distribution of drugs have played a big role in all 5 seasons of The Wire. If anything is clear from The Wire, it is that the War on Drugs is a failed war, that only keeps the cycle of addiction, poverty and violence going. For many, the War on Drugs, is a war on black neighborhoods. In the Wire, we see that incarceration of drug dealers has little effect, as there always is a new one to take his place. Obama could learn a lot about how to deal with drugs from Bunny Colvin’s Hamsterdamn experiment. Rather than brutality and incarceration, treatment and counseling were used in an area where drug dealers were free to sell drugs. With drugs less of a priority, police were able to stop violent crime, burglaries and rape.

If Obama was paying attention to Season 3, he will put more money into treatment, and less emphasis on incarceration. While the American War on Drugs has focused primarily on the black community, millions of white Americans have become addicted to prescription pills and methamphetamine. While surveys have shown that white people use drugs at the same rate of black people, blacks are incarcerated five times as much for drug crimes.

Education

Season 4 of The Wire highlighted the educational crisis in urban areas. Through the eyes of four poor black children and a white teacher. In Season 4 we see the failure of No Child Left behind, as teachers are forced to teach to tests rather than using their own skills and knowledge. We also see the apathetic teachers and the overcrowded classrooms and the social problems that lead to dysfunctional students.

Season 4 also makes it clear that students in urban areas who aren’t involved in the educational process get educated on the street to become drug dealers. John McCain called education the Civil Rights Movement of the 21st century, probably the ony thing he said during the campaign that I agreed with. Education in urban areas is not a black problem but an American problem, a problem all Americans must unite to solve.

Politics

Clearly Obama paid close attention to Mayor Tommy Carcetti’s campaign against Mayor Royce. Both Obama and Carcetti were good looking, with excellent debate and oratory skills. Just like Tommy Carcetti woke up white in a city that wasn’t, Barack Obama woke up black in a county that wasn’t. Carcetti managed to overcome his race problem by splitting the black vote between Royce and Gray just like Obama managed to split some of the white vote between Edwards and Clinton in the primary. Carcetti kept a cool head while his opponents tried to connect him to unsavory characters and reached out to people outside of his base to develop a strong coalition.

Obama must also learn from Tommy Carcetti’s brief term as Mayor. Carcetti found himself in a budget deficit as Mayor and unable to complete his campaign promises. He also realized that he would have to eat “bowls of shit” from several interest groups in Baltimore. Obama must also confront this problem in dealing with the military, Wall street and religious leaders. With a failing economy, he must be both pragmatic and idealistic in his decisions on what to cut, what to keep and what to expand.

Obama must also be like Carcetti and build alliances with his opponents who did not support him in the election, such as Carcetti’s alliance with council president, Narise Campbell. He must also crack down on corruption in politics, whether it be from the Clay Davis’s of the world or the Tom Delays.

I’d never in my life think that the cast of the Wire would do a PSA or ad but here they are in North Carolina supporting Barack Obama in the election (did Wire fans push Obama over the edge in NC?)

For the Golden Globes this year there are no African Americans nominated for any major awards. The only African American character nominated for an award was played by Robert Downey Jr. in blackface.

Downey was nominated for best supporting actor in a comedy for his portrayal of an Australian actor playing an African American in black make up in “Tropic Thunder.”

The only African American people nominated at all are Beyonce Knowles for co-writing a song for “Cadillac Records” and Blair Underwood for best supporting role in a mini-series or TV movie for “In Treatment.” Despite critically acclaimed performance by Jeffrey Wright and Thandie Newton in “W”, and excellent performances by the mostly African American cast of the Wire, no African Americans were nominated at all for any of the Film or Television categories.

Despite the fact that “Raisin in the Sun” was nominated for best movie made for television, none of the actors were nominated for an award.

The Wire was also snubbed earlier by The Emmys. Many critics have referred to “The Wire” as the best show on Television and even the best show ever. While Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin were nominated for “30 Rock”, Tracy Morgan was not.

The Daily Telegraph has a list of “50 facts you might not know” about Barack Obama that could be interpreted as a Christmas wish list for the president-elect. Some examples:

He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics.

His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire .

Want to know more about our new President-elect? Click here for the full list of fun facts.

Endorsements for Obama are coming from all angles of the political and media spectrum. He is getting endorsements from cast members of critically acclaimed TV Shows, GOP senators, Oscar winning actors, and major conservative newspapers.

In the run up to the election, everybody seems to pulling out last minute endorsement for Barack Obama. While Matt Damon has been public in support for Obama and openly critical of Palin, he is now campaigning for Obama in Florida.

Sarah Palin’s hometown newspaper, The Anchorage Daily News, has also endorsed Obama, citing questions of Palin’s ability to lead.

The Financial Times, a conservative newspaper, has also endorsed Obama, citing his superbly run campaign.

Former Republican South Dakota Senator,  Larry Pressler, the first Vietnam veteran to serve in the US senate, has also endorsed Obama, citing his ability to handle the financial crisis over McCain’s.

Cast members of HBO’s critically acclaimed TV show, the Wire have also been campaigning for Obama in North Carolina.

The former Republican Governor of Massachusetts, William Weld has also endorsed Obama, citing Obama’s good judgment, “deep sense of calm” and “first-class political temperament.”