My colleague Trisha, a wise woman from Imperial Valley who loves The Wire, just informed me about an interview in Newsweek with Amy Poehler.  The following exchange takes place between interviewer and Amy Poehler:

Q: What cereal are you going to have?

A: Right now I’m down with Honey Nut Cheerios because that’s what Omar eats on “The Wire”

 Q: Do you base all your food choices on television shows?

A: I don’t know if you’re a “Wire” fan, but on the show Omar travels far and wide and risks getting killed just to get a box of Honey Nuts. So I like to think it keeps me connected to the streets.

I just went to the Honey Nut Cheerios website... lots of white people, upper middle class blacks, and the honey nut bee.  Their marketing team needs to show some respect for Omar Little and let him endorse their product.  Mad money to be made... street cred AND lower cholesterol.  See Omar's quest for Honey Nut below... (Nudity alert: opening 30 seconds).

After having a three day weekend, I've been scouring the Internets to get my mind back in the swing of things.  By the way, was anyone at Bondi on Saturday night?  I was there, enjoying my dinner, wine and company when out of nowhere, I couldn't stop coughing! Face turning red, gasping for breath, arms in the air, the whole bit. I couldn't even stop long enough to have water.  Then I looked around to discover other patrons coughing.  Suddenly, a hostess started yelling for everyone to evacuate the restaurant.  We all went running outside (my dinner companion does not forget to grab his beer... always thinking, that one!) when fire trucks and the police soon descend on the joint.  Apparently, some knucklehead decided to see what pepper spray smells like.   Nice.  Chalk one up for the knuckleheads. 

Anyway, here's some Tuesday reading...

The new R.E.M. album Accelerate comes (officially) out today.  Here's an interview with Michael Stipe.

Stuff White People Like is now coming to a bookshelf near you... and the blog's author, white boy and unpublished author Christian Lander, is getting paid a reported $300,000 for his musings. 

This is almost unbelievable.  We are banning literary authors from entering our country for reasons of "moral turpitude"?  When will our nation and culture grow tired of our puritanical roots, especially when they are so misguided and hypocritical?  It was the outfit that gave the poor bloke away:  "he was dressed in top hat, long velvet coat and gloves – and detained while officials searched the Internet for information about him and his work."

Another disturbing trend, which we've felt acutely right here in San Diego, with the loss of David Elliott at the Union-Tribune.

David Simon, creator of The Wire, has a couple of different projects in the making.  I've heard rumblings of an HBO series set in New Orleans.  However, this HBO project might be a priority.  I have to admit, the characters in The Departed seem like perfect Simon material.

Here's a review of yet another book purporting a deep anti-intellectualism in the United States.   The book's author Susan Jacoby writes:  "America is now ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism."

On that cheery note, Happy Tuesday!

Again, if you are not caught up on HBO's The Wire, you should stop reading here.  Terrible and Devastating Spoliers Ahead!

For those fans who are caught up, some of whom may have watched last night's episode a week early On Demand (like me), let's agree we've experienced a great loss.

Omar Little, trail-blazing gay stick-up boy, the most honorable thief among thieves, was gunned down last night in a west side convenience store buying a pack of Newports.  The writers have protected Omar for four seasons now, longer than I expected.  I've been sensing Omar's impending death throughout this season, as his grief over Butchie's murder by Marlo Stanfield's crew created an Omar we haven't seen before:  emotionally and physically broken, reckless, so bent on revenge he took himself out of the shadows and onto Stanfield's corners, challenging Marlo to a showdown.

Omar has always lived in the shadows, smoking his cigarettes inside dark corners, conducting street-level surveillance and putting the cops' surveillance efforts to shame (an intentional contrast).  Throughout The Wire, when Omar emerged, it was always with great heralding as corner boys and young pawns ran ahead of him yelling "Omar," "Omar," "It's Omar, y'all." 

The Onion's A.V. Club has a list of the top 20 nerdiest pop-culture obessions.  A lot of what you expect gets a shout out:  Star Trek, Buffy, D&D, Renaissance Fairs.  But there also are some interesting choices, like Frank Zappa and The Simpsons. 

Then there are some obsessions I've never heard of, like game show tape trading.  From the description:  "so the stalwarts gather on the Internet, offering videocassettes and DVD-Rs of Classic Concentration and The Joker's Wild, and comparing notes about the greatest hosts, the greatest contestants, the greatest celebrity guests, and the greatest eras of long-running series. And the really faithful gather in person at the Game Show Congress in Los Angeles, where they attend panels, meet legends, and play the games themselves." 

Come to think of it, I can't remember the last game show I watched.  I think they should have a trivia show about The Wire - not only would I watch, I would totally dominate. In fact, in the spirit of the list, maybe there should be Wire role-playing games.  Oh Oh, I get Omar.  Or Bubbs.  Even being Avon or Marlo would be fun for stretch.  Totally scaring myself.  

Back to the list, Rocky Horror Picture Show is on it, as is World of Warcraft - to which the listers say:  "Five minutes in a room with any two World Of Warcraft players will drive any non-player mad, amid jargony babble like "Next time we run MC, sheep one of the core hounds while I rush in and pull aggro. Damn, I wish they hadn't nerfed paladins."  Every show/game/fantasy has its own jargon.  Like for me, I often say to myself, "Yo, a man's got to have a code.  You feel me?"

Big surprise! The ratings for this year's Golden Globes were terrible.

Researchers have found that consumers will believe a wine is better if it costs more. The pleasure centers of the brain actually undermine us in the discerning process...then again, all that wine tasting hardly makes one a vigilant watchdog against marketing manipulation.

Here's a fun article on writers throughout history who have chosen to remain anonymous at times in their career. It was once a very common practice, for what turns out to be strategic marketing on the writer's part: "If you follow in any detail the use of anonymity by literary writers - satirists, poets, dramatists and novelists - you will find that only rarely was final concealment the aim. Provoking curiosity and conjecture - highlighting the very question of authorship - was more often the calculated effect."

Violinist Pinchas Zukerman says Americans spend too much money on sports and not enough on the arts: "We're not cultivated people, as a culture," he said. "We have a vast culture here, yet we're more divided than ever before." He goes on to warn: "Most of it has to do with government not wanting to cultivate its own product. We'd better start looking at that soon, or this is going to become a jungle."

And this could seal the deal for my vote in the presidential primaries. Barack Obama's favorite TV show is The Wire (this has been well reported) and his favorite character is.... drumroll please.... OMAR! In short, Omar don't play, y'all.

Enjoy!

Episode 2 in the fifth and final season airs this Sunday night on HBO. I can't wait to write about the new season - especially all the newsroom stuff - but am waiting to wrap my head around the second episode.

Stevie Wonder's Living in the City is one of my favorite songs - an urban anthem I didn't think could be improved upon. But in fact, it can. Especially if you add Ray Charles in an exhilarating dual performance with Wonder. This one goes down easier than The Wire, but both make me swoon.