Just got done recording the afore promised podcast/radio show that ended up a bit sunnier than I thought it would. Anyway, I hope you enjoy cause I filled it to the brim with some damn fine songs.

Oh, and this time it’s actually in stereo (if you didn’t notice that on the SDRE podcast, oh well). It clocks in at just under 40 minutes again and you can listen below or download here.

So, I had planned on recording a new segment this weekend as a podcast/radio show. The idea is to be more radio-like, so less talking and more music. I had chosen a bunch of sunny, summer day music since the weather has been relatively warm and sunny, but that is no longer true. We here in Colorado Springs are looking at rain for the next few days. I want to get another recording out there, but it appears I will need to rework it to have a lot of Mazzy Star in it.

Anyway, look for something this weekend.

The Wire is poetry. I’m serious. I’ve always loved the show, but having just finished the final episodes of the final season I can’t help but think that it is one of the finest shows I’ve ever seen and in the end only one word can describe it: poetry. Sure, the show is an ugly mess of humanity: sex, drugs, corruption and murder, lots and lots of murder. Sure, it’s set in Baltimore, but that doesn’t make me like it any better, if anything my familiarity with the city and the way it’s depicted should be a hindrance for enjoying the show. What people like about the show is pretty simple, it’s continually gripping through all five seasons. The writing is stellar and plot lines stretch throughout all five seasons while still allowing the focus to shift to different aspects of the plot(s). In more simplified terms, it’s CSI in five seasons instead of an hour, but still oh so much more. There’s the engaging characters, whether the politicians, the cops or the thugs, and, of course, the action. Not necessarily fighting and shooting, which happens, but the mystery involved with the cops trying to take down the drug dealers, break their codes and do it all legally. And then there’s the other side who continually morphs to stay ahead of the heat. And the endless power games of the politicians and the collateral damage related to it.

But all of this doesn’t add up to much more than just a good show, which The Wire always has been.  What makes the show great, other than the truncated list I provided above, is the tapestry the show weaves as a whole. Yes, the sum is greater than the parts. What begins as a somewhat unrealistic look at any major city (”There’s no way a police commissioner can be that corrupt”) turns out to be a very plausible, and likely, look at the intersection of crime, greed, politics, drugs, and power and how the good becomes tainted by evil due to these intersections. I shouldn’t even have mentioned good and evil as these polar opposites don’t really exist in the show. There are very few truly evil characters and even fewer good one’s.

But what is it about this show that is different than so many other shows or movies that are just as post-modern in their approach? It’s because it’s believable. A police Lieutenant who is as hard lined and by the book as you come across has a tainted history that follows him the entire series. A drug lord who finds the company of his lawyer more despicable than the grit of the street. The corrupt mayor and commissioner are replaced with the nicer, cleaner version, which then become soiled by the reality of the world they live in. Yes, they want to do good. Yes, they try to do good, and some do, but in the end, it’s just an endless cycle of lies and corruption. This may make you think that the show is depressing, and for some it may be, I certainly don’t find it to be uplifting, but it’s real. It’s just life. That’s what The Wire shows you. Life in Big City America where ideals fall apart as you come closer to realizing them. And it takes the entire five seasons to show you this. One believes that in the end someone will come out clean and have done a good job. That somewhere the hero will emerge. Well, no hero emerges and the machine continues. The characters lived through this show. Not always for the better, but changed. And that’s why I call it poetry. Tragic, maybe, but poetic all the same.

Okay, here’s a quick update of my vacation.

I flew into Norfolk, VA. Drove with my mother and stepfather to their house in Edenton, NC. Spent time there, had Christmas.  Drove with my Mom up north to Annapolis to see my sister and brother-in-law. Ate. Mom drove me to my father’s in Baltimore. Spent time there, had a partial Christmas. Dinner one night with step sister and family, my Aunt and others. Saw my grand parents who won’t remember I was there. Got on a plane. Delayed out of Chicago. Delayed in the air by the Springs. Snow. (Left winter coat in NC.) Drove home in sleet. Bed time around 2 am. Work the next morning.

Some pics are up on the album page. I promised. I delivered. Enjoy. I’m tired. Done house and dog sitting. Can’t wait to sleep in own bed.

It might be a few days before I post anything. I’m house sitting for the next few days and my internet contact will be limited to work, so . . .