The Wire S4: Episodes 1-3.

Half watching the commentary to Season 4 of The Wire by Ed Burns and David Simon. What's interesting about the last two seasons...is they hit close to home for the writers. Ed Burns is a former public school teacher (7 years in Middle School and High School - most gratifying and hardest), who came from Homicide/Narcotics (20 years in the Baltimore Police Dept), in the Baltimore School District. And David Simon is a former journalist working Baltimore. There's a sense of authenticity to the Wire...that is lacking in other series, due to the fact that writers know their topic inside/out - they are writing what they know and is inside their guts. The song for the fourth season in the credits? Is being sung by 14 year olds.

Great lines from commentary: "God is not a first rate novelist." - Richard Price.
"No TV show is worth the amount of paperwork that is generated for it." - David Simon.

According to the commentary - their theme was to take four kids and follow them from childhood through to adulthood in the season. Show how they changed. Ed Burns states that teaching is an acting job first and foremost - you go in as a boxer. Not as a teacher. You have to slamn them the first day out. (Which is why I'm not a teacher...although I'd probably not be all that bad at it. I can shut up a bunch of unruly Contractors with my voice. But I do not like children. Didn't as a kid, don't now. No tolerance for the BS of either the system or the kids.)

Off to a Lake in the Hudson River Valley this weekend, in the Berkshire Mountains of NY, North East of West Point Military Academy, near Fishkill National Park. Bro lives in Beacon just 20 minutes south, folks have rented a house next to a lake for two weeks..up there, to visit with bro, niece and me. Too bloody hot for them to come into the city and my Dad couldn't handle the walking anyhow.

Just watched the first three episodes of S4 the Wire. Not a lot of time. So mostly impressions.
Episode 2 - froze on me, and I had to download it from itunes to catch the bits I missed. But I figured out I can buy tv episodes of $1.99 and watch them on my ipod. Rather cool. Am thinking of seeing if itunes has Miracle Day. Dang - it doesn't. Oh well.

My Impressions of The Wire S4 Episodes 1-3

( The Wire Episodes 1-3: Boys of Summer, Soft Eyes, and Home Room )

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Everyone is whining about the heat. It's basically 94 degrees right now. It felt like 100 in the City today, apparently, and in the 90s to the 100s all across the US. And I mean all across the US more or less. Actually the midwest is the worst - having hailed from there, this really isn't that bad. In KC we'd get to 110 most July's and August, you just stayed indoors. Remember getting out of school early when it started in August. Because we didn't have air conditioning. To save electricity - I set the old a/c at 78. Will set it at 80 for the weekend. Can't turn it off completely - that's a bad idea.

Tomorrow is going to be worse. 103 high. Great. I'm venturing north, sort of. Taking the subway, not going to be fun that. Then the train - better. May take the F to the 7, as opposed to the F to the A to the 4 to get to Grand Central and Metro-North. Thinking F to the 7 may be faster and less a pain.
Hoping the trains are air conditioned. They should be. Leaving at 9:30 and getting there at noon.