
Michael K. Williams Is More Than Omar from ‘The Wire’ - LeoNatan25
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/nyregion/michael-k-williams-is-more-than-omar-from-the-wire.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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throwaway91111
Salient: "Michael K Williams asks: Am I typecast?"
[https://youtu.be/STkh15nZ1uA](https://youtu.be/STkh15nZ1uA)

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LeoNatan25
This was beautiful! Thank you!

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tootie
"he was on a three-day-long bender when his mother brought him to a rally for
Barack Obama in Harrisburg, Pa. Earlier during his campaign, Mr. Obama had
declared “The Wire” the best show on television and Omar his favorite
character. When the two men met privately after the event, Mr. Williams, lock-
jawed and high on cocaine, could barely speak."

Damn.

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balls187
There are not many shows taht are better than the Wire; my favorite part about
Omar is that he doesn't curse.

In a profane and violent world, he has a code, which he upholds. IIRC,
MKWilliams was the one who insisted that Omar not curse.

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rsync
"There are not many shows taht are better than the Wire; my favorite part
about Omar is that he doesn't curse."

I loved the wire - truly.

However, I think I would rate the first season of true detective as being
better than all of the seasons of the wire _except_ for season 2, which was my
favorite.

I was surprised to learn that s2 (dock workers, etc.) is not very well liked -
I thought it was by far the most interesting.

EDIT: WIRE SPOILER: also, as long as we're talking about it ... the resolution
of the omar character in the last seasons of the wire was _incredibly anti-
climactic_ and just downright weird. I understand they got the rug pulled out
and had to quick wrap up the show but that was really just the worst and most
useless bookend to his character arc...

~~~
civilitty
> EDIT: WIRE SPOILER: also, as long as we're talking about it ... the
> resolution of the omar character in the last seasons of the wire was
> incredibly anti-climactic and just downright weird. I understand they got
> the rug pulled out and had to quick wrap up the show but that was really
> just the worst and most useless bookend to his character arc...

I think that was the point. I don't remember where I read it, but his death
was always going to be like that. It didn't matter that he was the only beacon
of (kinda) good in a cruel world - good and bad, the streets get you
eventually and its never honorable or glorious.

~~~
BurningFrog
Yeah, I would have expected - and enjoyed - a blaze of glory end for Omar.

Which in itself is an argument against doing that!

The way he went out says that in the real "game", there are no super heroes.
Even the biggest badass dies just as much from a bullet, and ultimately mean
nothing compared to the big institutional forces that shape the world.

One way to think about The Wire as a whole is that it's about organisations
and how they remain the same, regardless of the seemingly big influence
individuals have in them.

At the end of the show most the bigger-than-life people on all sides have been
replaced. Yet everything is just the same as it always was.

~~~
mercer
What makes the show both brilliant and crushingly depressing is the cyclical
nature of it all. At the end there's a new Bubbles, a new Omar, etc. Nothing
changes.

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slg
I would strongly recommend Michael K. Williams' interview on NPR's Bullseye.
It is great.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQyXxGgz__Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQyXxGgz__Y)

~~~
_asummers
That was an excellent listen, thanks for the link!

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Zeebrommer
"I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. It's all in the game though,
right?"

~~~
honestoHeminway
Hey yo. Hey yo. You all need to open this door, man, before I huff and puff.
Come on, now, by the hairs of your chinny-chin-chin.

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escapetech
In light of the "All Eyez on Me" movie recently released, there is an
interesting, indirect relationship between Michael K Williams and Tupac
Shakur.

Shakur was filming with Mickey Rourke for 1996 release Bullet (actually filmed
in 1994), and Williams was specifically chosen for a role by Shakur because of
his facial scar. William's manager at the time was James Rosemond who is
currently incarcerated with several life terms. Rosemond was a childhood
friend of Michael Williams, and grew up in the same area of East Flatbush,
Brooklyn, near the Vandeveer housing projects (now called Flatbush Gardens),
and became heavily involved in street crimes as a teenager, allegedly robbing
drug dealers like in the Wire.

Fast forwarding to the early 90's, a number executives in the urban music
industry had indirect/direct ties with street crime and gang culture, and
Rosemond, who became Michael K William's manager, was believed to be one of
them (he also managed several popular urban music groups at the time). It's
widely believed by industry insiders that Rosemond wanted to become Shakur's
manager as well, but Shakur wasn't interested. Also, much of Shakur's problems
(the 1994 shooting and imprisonment) are believed by many to be of the doing
of either Rosemond or his acquaintances.

It would be interesting to know how much Omar's character was influenced by
his friendship with Rosemond and people from the neighborhood they both knew.

~~~
unclebucknasty
A lot of the show was inspired by real events and real people, including the
experiences and true character of some of the actors.

One of the most interesting to me was Melvin Williams who played The Deacon,
and in real life was a big-time heroin kingpin who was renowned for his
intelligence. There's a decent documentary about him floating around and a
(short) Wikipedia page [0].

Another is Felicia Pearson who played Snoop. Listen to an interview with her
and hear her backstory, and you know she's the real deal. Stephen King called
her character "perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a
television series". [1]

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Williams_(actor)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Williams_\(actor\))

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoop_(The_Wire)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoop_\(The_Wire\))

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nafizh
15 years of The Wire. Nothing has changed.

Goes perfectly with the ethos of the show, at the end, nothing changes.

~~~
bmelton
Enamored with David Simon's work, I picked up the DVD box set of "Homicide:
Life on the Street", which I'd heard of before, but didn't have an attachment
to. After seeing The Wire, then Treme (which took me a long time to adjust to
not being The Wire, but may actually be even better) and then Show Me A Hero,
it's fair to say that Davis Simon is just a brilliant writer.

Anyway, that was kind of a tangent to get to the real point, which is that
Homicide, filmed a decade earlier than the Wire, highlighted many of the same
troubles that The Wire did. Perhaps as the result of being based on the same
(or similar) works, but if Homicide was authentic (and I believe it was) and
the Wire was authentic (which I also believe), then it seems that Baltimore's
had problems for some time.

I work in Baltimore now, and get to see some of the areas The Wire was filmed
in enough to see that they've made real progress in certain areas, but on the
whole, but Baltimore tends to do a good job of holding a spot in the top 10 of
"most dangerous cities" lists year to year.

~~~
long
I tried getting into Treme but couldn't hack it. Maybe I'll give it another
try, though -- what was the appeal of it for you?

~~~
bmelton
It took me a long time to switch gears. Going from The Wire to Treme is kind
of like switching from Windows to Linux -- the hardest part is unlearning what
you already know. In my case, I kept expecting Treme to be more Wire-esque. It
isn't, at all. It's its own show, with its own characters, in its own city.

What it has in common with The Wire is that its characters are richly crafted,
and they're _whole_ characters. Nobody in any David Simon show is a throwaway
character, and that might not ever have been more true than in Treme. Also,
the acting is exceptional, in every scene, and in every case. Another
commonality is that of the failures of people, and of the institutions that
ostensibly aim to protect them. Like The Wire, Treme is filled with a panoply
of people all attempting their best in every task, but as in life, those
people sometimes fail, and often those failures come at the expense of
somebody else. Just as in The Wire, we often get to see the impact of those
failures up close and personal, and we get to feel the hurt it causes, while
sympathizing with those who made whatever mistake caused the failure, and far
too often to be comfortable, we get to pick which one of those people we
prefer.

There are big differences, obviously. The Wire is, at its core, a cops and
robbers drama, with some other stuff going on. Treme focuses more on the
people, and less on the game they're playing. Music plays a _much_ bigger role
in Treme than in The Wire, but that's a commonality too, as David Simon works
tend to feature the city as a character, and Treme's set in New Orleans, and
that music is part of New Orleans' character.

The narrative in Treme meanders around A LOT. It all basically wraps itself up
by the end, but while The Wire managed to tell a basically cohesive story each
season, Treme's big plot is spread out, with blurrier lines. It gives you the
feeling of closure with each season finale, but the collection of tales being
told don't, and really, keep going well after the show's end.

At the end of the day though, the main difference is that narrative draw. If
you need one, maybe Treme isn't for you. Sure, it has political corruption,
and criminal investigations, and the occasional legal proceeding, but at its
core Treme is really just a window into the lives of a couple dozen folks
making their way in post-Katrina New Orleans. We get to see how the storm
affected them, and how the city affected them, and sometimes, how they've
affected the city -- whether by making their mark on it, or succumbing to its
ways, or in some cases, getting out while the getting is good. It isn't
_about_ anything that I could wrap up into a few sentences, but it's a deep
cultural exploration into a culturally rich and beautiful people, and it's a
showcase for some of the best damn music around, and it's an expose into the
triumphs and troubles of people just trying to make it work in a city at a
time when nothing's working as it should. It's also the inverse of that, in
true David Simon form, so -- yeah, nobody can fault you for having a hard time
making an adjustment, but it's worth adjusting if you can manage it.

~~~
devuo
Beautifully written.

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balls187
If you've not seen the Wire, this article contains major spoilers.

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cbanek
Also the unofficial spokesman for honey nut cheerios.

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Nexxxeh
He's excellent as expected in "Hap and Leonard" with James Purefoy.

It's on Sundance TV in the US and Amazon Prime in the UK.

Two seasons with a third already commissioned.

>Set in the late 1980's, Hap and Leonard is a darkly comic swamp noir of two
best friends, one femme fatale, a crew of washed up revolutionaries, a pair of
murderous psycho killers, some lost loot, and the fuzz.

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sotojuan
He was great in Boardwalk Empire!

~~~
LeoNatan25
I can't think of any of his performances that have been weak (performance-
wise).

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kelvin0
Best.Show.Ever. Nuance, layers, intricacies and Macro/Micro views on Baltimore
pictures in a realistic and coherent whole. I will never know these microcosm,
but for 5 years I felt I was part of them.

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endswapper
"Omar's coming!"

~~~
ruminasean
Not to be a pedant, but one of the best things about The Wire is the
language..."Omar comin!" or "knockos" instead of "narcos" (narco cops) or
"Hamsterdam," a mishearing of "Amsterdam."

~~~
c17r
I saw an article that said the UK audience required a Rosetta Stone for the
Baltimore street talk, both words and accents.

~~~
DanBC
They didn't.

In general people in the UK can understand most Americans. People in the US
are fucking baffled when they hear someone from the UK say "herb" or "water".

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dajohnson89
He also has a documentary series on Viceland, called black market. Very good
look into illegal underworlds.

