Look into those eyes. This guy will kick your ass and then fuck your wife. Not vaginally, mind you, but rather, aurally. His role on The Wire was merely a ruse. He's no suit, but rather a stone-cold player, one equally at ease finding solitude on a beach as much as making love to the camera. Headshots only, friendo - I mean, he only has like two-thousand to his name, all on glorious display over at LanceReddick.com.
No doubt, this cat was born to soothe the world with his Al Jarreauesqueness, all while giving sweaters a good name. In a world where it's play or get played, Reddick's made the choice. And in his honor, I shall populate the Earth to this music.
RELATED: M.I.A. AND BLAQSTARR GO WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE
From EW not too long back, Ken Tucker appreciates:
To put it as bluntly as Cheese did shortly before getting shot in the head: ''Ain't no nostalgia to this shit here.'' The Baltimore drug dealer was talking about his unpredictable, dangerous business; we're talking about the final episode of HBO's The Wire and, now, its legacy.
The greatest show most of America wasn't watching never sagged significantly in quality over five seasons. Its creator, David Simon, remained to The Wire's surprisingly ebullient end one of the most bullheaded, contentious, funny, and visionary makers of television the medium has seen. The finale, rather than opting for The Sopranos' blank-screen ambiguity, said with forcefulness: Life is definitely not fair, but it's well worth doing the hard work of living.
In exploring institutions such as local government and the public school system, The Wire insisted that no legitimate organization is any less prone to corruption and exploitation than illegal ones. Simon and his writers were making a statement that was a radical, rarely articulated one: Power is essentially evil.
From a showbiz point of view, one of The Wire's most enduring triumphs will be that it put more — and a greater variety of — black faces in major roles than any dramatic series in TV history. Now we have to spend the next year or so seeing some of these excellent actors pop up in small roles in network television, and we'll feel a little of the despair they must experience, knowing that they'll never get roles as juicy as their Wire ones.
Certainly The Wire was the best show on the air during its five seasons, and can stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest achievements in series television. And now that it has completed its run, it can be watched forever after in the manner of a work of literature, fulfilling the comparisons from all those reviewers. Just take any one of the fat, season-long DVD collections, each about as thick as your average Balzac novel (the usual Wire literary comparison, Charles Dickens, tended to gas on longer than Simon and company did). We can spend a few nights with each ''chapter,'' diving into a universe most of us will never experience. For which we can be thankful and grateful on a couple of levels.
In related news, this weekend, I saw Clay Davis shilling Dunkin' Donuts, Omar Little playing 42nd fiddle to Casey Affleck, Stringer Bell herd zombies, and Officer Beadie seemingly jump ship to Michael Scott's Scranton-based paper supply company. For the money, Lieutenant Daniels has the best reassignment going.
Personally, I’m taking a much deserved hiatus from reality-TV, considering I still have way too many episodes of Heroes to catch up on. But having said that, bless Salon’s Heather Havrilesky for echoing my innermost thoughts when it comes to "the biggest, fattest TV Twinkie in the box" - CBS's Kid Nation.
On this controversial show, which everyone loudly despises already, children are made to work very hard for next to nothing. Welcome to the real world, suckers!
You've got to hand it to CBS for its reasoning on this one: We don't treat our laborers with any respect or dignity in this country, let alone pay them a living wage. Why should kids be any different? As long as most of the population is being demeaned and taken advantage of and plowed under by the wheels of capitalism, shouldn't our kids be in on the action, too? What better way to teach them about the limited value of hard work than by making them work way too hard for almost no reward?
…This might look like a torturous way for a kid to spend his or her time. But really, what practical purpose do we serve by allowing children to play with blocks and ride their bicycles around in circles, when they'll spend the balance of their days on earth at a desk in an airless cubicle at a soul-sucking corporate office, pretending to work? Games of make-believe might be useful, but otherwise, playtime is just a dangerous fantasy that gives children the illusion that their lives won't be a living hell when they grow up. Is that really fair?
That's why it's so satisfying to watch as the kids realize that they have to work, and work is hard. Why, most of us have been coming to terms with this basic realization for most of our adult lives! What an advantage, to get it out of the way at a tender age!
…But these delicious youngsters don't impress our nation's concerned critics and parents, who find this show hideous and fake and boring, and believe that childhood should be spent fiddling aimlessly with blocks or dollies.
I disagree. I think kids are better off trudging around in the desert, tired and alone, with no one to turn to for comfort but other miserable kids. Doesn't that sound just like your first entry-level job? By lugging big buckets of water in extreme heat for hours on end, these children will gain an accurate sense of conditions in today's rapidly changing job market!
For the record, I’ll be mixing my Shel Silverstein with a little Art of War during Wee Man’s initial year in oxygen, saving the Chomsky for year two.
Sopranos vs. The Wire - such a tough call, but personally, there's part of me that would love to Photoshop Joe Millionaire in between Tony and Omar.
