Baltimore

I just started series 4 (or should I say season 4) of The Wire yesterday. 3 episodes in 24 hours. It's become a cliche to say it but as with most cliches, it's because they're true: The Wire is the best TV drama series ever (Just tell me what's better?? The Sopranos first seasons maybe, but then it went a bit off the boil). The dialogue crackles, and frankly has no qualms about leaving those of us who weren't concentrating behind. Dialogue is never used to expound the narrative. That's the joy of watching it on DVD - going back & checking those lyrical miracles. The characterisation is phenomenal - there are probably 15-20 lead roles in each series, and you care about all of them, whilst the host of minor characters are never simply stereotypes (or is that archetypes?). There are never easy endings, just like in real life. Anyway there's no need for me to write a glowing review of this show - it's been done by much greater minds than I - check Charlie Brooker's Tapping The Wire pieces.

I've always thought that Nina Simone's version of 'Baltimore', from the somewhat under-appreciated album of the same name, catches the hopeless, pained, downward spiral of Baltimore society as seen through the prism of The Wire - and wondered why it had never been synched to the show. Nina's delivery is just that bit more resigned than Randy Newman's original, but with a real slow groove which almost makes you wonder if she'll get to the end of the song.

Nina Simone 'Baltimore'

Thinking about urban decay this week, there's obviously some grounds for optimism in the election of President Obama. I've actually felt quite moved by the whole thing from afar, and thought his Inauguration speech was a great example of a political speech that did not take the easy option of sloganeering, but actually called on people to take responsibility for themselves (I admit I did shed a tear at the momentousness of it all). Apparently some watchers were disappointed that there was no particular phrase that one could take away from this speech, no particular tag line for the media - I thought this was a good thing - politics is too complicated for such simplicities. Certainly his message about remaking America, and showing a more open hand to the rest of the world is welcome.

I think it's inevitable that a lot of folk will end up being disappointed by Obama, as he seems to be regarded as a superhero at the moment, and all that compromise he's going to have to do through his term will surely turn off those who maybe have an unrealistic view of how much one (admittedly extremely powerful) man can do. But good luck to him, he'll need it!

So the first black President... well the line it made me think of this week, and indeed for the past months, was Flavor Flav's 'we got a black quarterback, so step back' from She Watch Channel Zero. Back then in the 80s, when the NFL was on Channel 4, I could probably told you who that black quarterback was, but I haven't a clue now. Wiki Answers tells me Marlin Briscoe in 1968, but Flavor sure wasn't talking about him. It doesn't matter so much (to me, at least) who the black quarterback Flavor refers to actually was in 1988 rather, that it was something remarkable that the team leader & strategist on the pitch should be black.

I was going to say initially 'it wasn't so long ago that it was something to be remarked upon (& celebrated) that there was a black NFL quarterback, and now there's a black president!'. But of course 'It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back' came out in 1988, so it's two decades since. Perhaps all this proves is that I'm getting old. And that change is possible.

Anyway here's one of Public Enemy's fiercest and greatest tracks from an amazing album which meant so much to me growing up. I guess PE actually often meant more to white than black teenagers (at least their audience seemed more white than black), probably cos they rocked better than all the rock bands at the time. Not that it matters.

Public Enemy 'She Watch Channel Zero'

And from the American ghetto to hard times in olde England. Billy Bragg's 'Between The Wars' is for my money his best song with a wonderful melody and lyrically a paen to an English nationalism that I find very easy to embrace with a 'faith in my common man'. This could be a very dry topic of course but to me it's real & heartfelt, even a line like 'Sweet moderation, heart of this nation'. It makes me well up - I think it's the sacrifice that generation went through - real hunger & want, to enable us to mess about on computers and watch reality TV all day.

Billy Bragg 'Between The Wars'

PS Here's a word that needs popularised, (thanks to the exellent A Word A Day site)

obambulate
PRONUNCIATION:(o-BAM-byuh-layt)
MEANING:verb intr.: To walk about.
ETYMOLOGY:From Latin ob- (towards, against) + ambulare (to walk). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ambhi- (around) that is also the source of ambulance, alley, preamble, and bivouac. The first print citation of the word is from 1614.
USAGE:"We have often seen noble statesmen obambulating (as Dr. Johnson would say) the silent engraving-room, obviously rehearsing their orations."The Year's Art; J.S. Virtue & Co.; 1917.