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Case (Mostly) Closed: One Last Look At ‘The Wire’ Perps & Particulars; (11 Things You Didn’t Know About Simon & The Show)

While it’s sad that the HBO Baltimore drama “The Wire” is over, one of the small comforts its conclusion allows us is the many interviews that reveal a lot of previously unknown backstory and bits of trivia and tidbits that series creator David Simon feels he no longer has to protect or preserve now that the story’s done (though some things he’s not giving away; don’t ask him about any symbolic moments on the show, you’ll have to figure those out yourself).

Many things you may have not known about David Simon, “The Wire” and its many characters and or some misconceptions needed clearing.

1. David Simon read his Aesop’s Fables while you played little league soccer.
“That whole [The Greek finally consents to Marlo’s Prop Joe betrayal, Marlo kills Joe] was Aesop’s Fable of the turtle and the scorpion and Joe didn’t recognize the scorpion. The Greek did.” [New Jersey Star Ledger]

2. Simon’s as surprised as you are that a black man even got passed the front door.
“I’m impressed that Obama got this close to being a nominee just being part African-American. There’s a part of me that looks at that and says, “Damn, we’re getting healthier on some things.” [New Jersey Star Ledger]

3. The Dickensian aspect is still the Dickensian Aspect.
“If you want to not focus on what the fuck’s going on, read the newspapers. Suffer the journalism, and don’t worry: the big picture will elude you nicely.” [New Jersey Star Ledger]

4. Snoop didn’t even know she was quoting an Academy Award winning Western [“Unforgiven”] To quote Snoop Pearson, quoting Clint Eastwood, “deserves got nothing to do with it.” [New Jersey Star Ledger]

5. Don’t think the Sopranos paved the way.
“[HBO] signed the deal with me to write it, and “The Sopranos” wasn’t on the air yet. “Oz” was, to me, the groundbreaker and the one that made me believe that “The Corner” could be on HBO.” [New Jersey Star Ledger]

6. Carcetti almost had his day early and mid-season
“Originally, we intended to play the election as a separate political piece between seasons three and four; that was not approved, so we needed to squeeze a little more politics into the season-four story, in terms of the election and the run-up to the election,” Simon explained about the attempt at an off-season political term to highlight Carcetti and the hall. [A/V Club]

7. From the very beginning, Simon and his writers were “laying pipe” [foreshadowing and dropping hints] for character arcs that would later set the tone for critical actions near the end.
“[Early on, Kima] emulated McNulty in her willingness at points to lose herself in the job and to be indifferent if not oblivious to the psychic costs on her personal life, at the critical moment where she was presented with a fundamental choice [when she got shot and refused to ID Wee-Bey, because she didn’t actually see him and wanted to be straight], she made one based on who she was.” [New Jersey Star Ledger]

“If you go back to the first season, there’s a very telling moment that was sort of latent, which was when McNulty [was] doing the log book and Sydnor didn’t see a key call that was part of their probable cause. And Prez says, “But Sydnor wasn’t there.” and McNulty says, “Yes, he was,” and he writes it in the book. So that was always latent, the potential was always there, and it’s always there for police officers.” [Salon]

8. And sometimes they did nothing about it.
“Did we lay other groundwork? We did. We could have cannibalized Rawls’ moment in the gay bar and advanced that moment. We were always laying pipe that could be picked up later. It doesn’t mean that you should pick it up though.” [New Jersey Star Ledger]

9. Despite claiming he would never reveal how he felt about McNulty’s ending, (in the same interview) Simon reveals how he feels about McNulty’s ending.
“I have my opinions [about McNulty], but you’ll never get them out of me,” and then later on… “I think Jimmy was ready to walk anyway. I actually think getting out — I actually have some hope for Jimmy. He was doing something that was killing him.” He seems oddly at peace there in those final scenes. “Absolutely, I think so.” [New Jersey Star Ledger]

10. David Simon, might be the vocal mouthpiece, but he is not, “The Wire” unconditionally
“‘The Wire’ is not David Simon. I’m getting a lot of ink, but Ed Burns has a huge amount to do with this, and the other writers — George Pelecanos and Richard Price and Dennis Lehane and Bill Zorzi. I mean it really is a team effort. And the stuff gets better when we sit around and argue with each other. We’ve been doing that for five years. We tried it in all variations, and we ended up where we ended up.”

Some shameful shit, yo. The Playlist dissects the media ala David Simon.
Ok, here’s something we have major issue with and it’s emblematic of writing sexier copy that exaggerates, takes things out of context and blows things out of proportion to make it sound better to the reader, but it’s fucking irresponsible shit that we can’t stand. It comes from the Kansas City Star and the whole Simon vs. Slate imbroglio (which is basically explained below). Rewrite man Jay Spry would have a field day with these poor choice of words.

But when Slate’s David Plotz accused Simon of “obsession bordering on monomania” about his former employer, Simon blew a fuse. He sent a long, profanity-laced defense to Slate arguing that, “given the basic ethics of newspapering, I don’t know how not to be angry” at the state of the Sun. “You write about schools, education, the police — and you can’t get off the entertainment pages,” Simon said of “Wire” scriptwriters. “But you write about other journalists, and they start screaming like cats in an alley.”

Really? Here’s the problem. This makes it sound like Simon freaked the fuck out in anger. Read his response, it’s not “profanity-laced” and there’s no blowing of fuses that we can see. It’s as usual, quite staid and articulate and sure, a little vexed, but it’s all in the language details. A small, but important part of the story if not conveyed correctly makes someone to appear as they are not.

And finally…
11. David Plotz is a fucking Pussy.
[Backstory: Slate reporter Plotz was at a wedding that Simon happened to be at. He engaged in conversation with Simon – knowing full well who he was – and then cannibalized his quotes for a story – never once coming forth to disclose he was a journalist or admit what Simon was saying was (unbeknownst to him) apparently on the record and fodder for the gristmill – weak sauce!]
“He [eventually] apologized. Not at first, but then his wife said, ‘You’re absolutely right.’ And then he apologized, and that ended it.” [A/V Club]

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