Facebook has been broken for most of the day, and it was unsettling to realise how often I log in to nosey about. A whole day without it made me go to Google and ask what the FBook was going on, until eventually I Googled FB itself, clicked the Help link and came in through the backdoor. Did you all have a meeting and decide to lock me out?
The Calvin & Hobbes challenge was a great success, producing as it did seven first drafts of possible material. One or two of the bits will end up being worked into the set I think, while bits and pieces of the rest may provide a spur for something better. If nothing else though, it has knocked me back into a productive state, and so I’m now going to embark on a script, and see if I can knock out a first draft before the New Year. And I’m not even going to bribe myself to do it, because that’s just the way I roll.
If you have never seen The Wire, do so immediately. Go and watch it right now. Order the DVDs if you have to and take the week off work. I’ll wait here whilst you get on with it.
Are you back? Good isn’t it? Do you feel like real po-lice? Nah, is it all good?
Either way, the strength of the characterisation in this excellent show is so powerful that it knocks me sideways when I see one of the actors pop up on another, inevitably inferior series. It actually upsets me, because it shakes me out of the disbelief I have willingly and gleefully suspended. It reminds me that these are actors playing a role, and that the show isn’t real, and those characters don’t really exist.
This is something that has never happened to me before. I can even accept Willow being in a sitcom, or Angel’s son being a Mad Man, or people from Firefly not living in space, or the staff of the West Wing working in late night comedy. But Jimmy McNulty? Fighting in the English Civil War? That certainly is not all good.
I’ve seen Cedric Daniels in Fringe, stoically failing to get up on a wire. I’ve seen Lester Freeman in a bizarre episode of Life On Mars where all the characters are American, and Gene Hunt has turned into a bored looking Mr White. Bubbles AND Marlo in Heroes, which has disappointingly lost its sense of humour. Omar in Boston Legal, not brandishing his shotgun and definitely not ripping off someone’s stash. Avon in House. And Stringer Bell in Absolutely Fabulous and 2.4 Children.
And as if to add seasoning to the gash, Louis Theroux did a documentary last week which was so close to The Wire in every way, that I’d be wondering if the whole thing was an elaborate reality show, if it weren’t for seeing every damn one of them in various incarnations of Law & Order.
Apparently David Simon has a new show called Generation Kill, which I would very much like to see. If nothing else it could cure my Wirey pangs.
