The Wire: Greatest Show Ever Made

To be fair, that would be new.

Iannis_sl said:

I really do like how they paint most of the gangbangers. Besides for Mr. Muhammed assassin man none of them were one dimensional. There weren't ANY noble savages, and the only savage in the entire run imho was Marlow. Even Cheese was just a hood rat fratboy.

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Marlo kind of gets a bad rap, I think. He is a product of his environment. Take a hardcore MMO min/maxer, make him a baby again, then raise him in B'more with all these morans running around talking about the game and whatever. Marlo was a reaction to Avon and Stringer. He just out-avon-and-stringer'ed them. Remember when String thought he was so hard because he did what had to be done? String was a goddamn rank amateur compared to Marlo.

He is a product of his environment.

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Yeah definitely. Marlo is the next step in the evolutionary chain of upcoming gangsters having to become increasingly more vicious and less inclined to follow the whole "street code" to survive and to overtake the older generation.

There's a really interesting scene in The Corner where one of the old timer junkies (played by the same actor as Detective Dollhouse - sorry, I'm shit with remembering character names) talks about how much more peaceful and orderly the drug trade on the streets was in the 70's, when it was just heroin being sold and the gangs would look out for the community, before the crack epidemic, the war on drugs was stepped up during the Reagan era, etc etc.

Speaking of crack, I always found it kind of weird that they almost never mention it in The Wire, and coke is only referenced a little more frequently. 90% of the time any drug is mentioned, it's heroin, even though it seemed like the trade was as much crack as H in The Corner, and from what I know about the US drug scene around that era there would have been a fair bit of crack, if not as much, being sold as there was H. Maybe they just wanted to simplify things (and granted it's harder to make an argument for legalizing crack than it is for heroin)?

Freakonomics What Do Real Thugs Think of The Wire?

Now I've read that one before, but apparently there are eight more and then some.

Freakonomics The Wire

It's fun to read what actual east coast gangsters think about the characters. It seems like many of them were already on Marlo's level a while back.

Speaking of crack, I always found it kind of weird that they almost never mention it in The Wire, and coke is only referenced a little more frequently.

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Heron, is the drug of choice in Baltimore hardly anyone does coke.

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I just wanted to 2nd this.. Baltimore is heroin city and 45min south is DC/crack city. there are very few people in Baltimore looking to buy crack compared to heroin in real life. the series definitely showed the real situation.

Heroin is a an east coast drug that seems to be slowly moving west.

as an aside, i grew up just south of detroit in michigan and heroin is fucking cheaper than pot. bunch of people i grew up with are dead or hooked on it. my brother is addicted. it sucks.

Probably because the quote is incorrect. He doesn't say best, he says bests. Shit like that messes with an average whitey, toss in some jeopardy ass-burgers and it's not surprising.

Trollicious_sl said:

as an aside, i grew up just south of detroit in michigan and heroin is fucking cheaper than pot. bunch of people i grew up with are dead or hooked on it. my brother is addicted. it sucks.

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Yeah heroin is/was becoming more and more popular it seems. My cousin got hooked on it because it was cheap for the high it provided. I also understand it is pretty much the hardest drug to kick. I made sure to divorce myself completely for anyone that was close to any drugs because I know how addictive a personality I have from my MMO addiction days.

No, I believe meth is the hardest drug to kick.

They're both pretty fucking hard. The detox for heroin is supposedly worse, however.

Detoxing heroin is pretty fucked up and you can see a good glimpse of what it kind of looks like from the movie "Trainspotting". However, meth has life-long effects such as tactile hallucinations and paranoia. Not to mention, once you've apparently had meth sex, you can't go back (so I've heard). Regardless though, don't do drugs. unless it's weed. Or ass. ^_^

Kuriin_sl said:

Not to mention, once you've apparently had meth sex, you can't go back (so I've heard).

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I thought that was ecstasy?