[Mb-civic] David Simon Says Pot War Not Working

Thu Sep 30 10:49:26 PDT 2004

David Simon Says 

By Jesse Walker, Reason
 Posted on September 29, 2004, Printed on September 30, 2004
 http://www.alternet.org/story/20033/

On Sept. 19 an often-overlooked gem returned to HBO. "The Wire," entering
its third season, is sometimes described as a Baltimore-based crime show,
but that's a little misleading. It's a show about cops and criminals, but it
doesn't follow any genre formulas. It does not wrap up a case every hour,
has no clear-cut heroes and few clear-cut villains, and is willing to
explore the ways that life in the middle of a police hierarchy and life in
the middle of a criminal syndicate might produce the same frustrations.

At the center of "The Wire" is creator-producer-writer David Simon, 44, a
veteran of the Baltimore Sun who rose to national prominence with his 1991
book "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets." The product of 12 months
immersed in the Baltimore homicide unit, it was quickly acclaimed as a
classic of contemporary journalism and soon inspired a TV series, NBC's
"Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993-1999). Simon's next book, "The Corner"
(1997), was written with retired detective Edward Burns; it was the product
of another year-long immersion, this time in a West Baltimore neighborhood
ravaged by the drug trade and the drug war. It too made a mark on the small
screen, as an HBO miniseries in 2000.

Simon had a hand in each program  he co-wrote "The Corner" and wrote
several episodes of "Homicide"  but he didn't build a television series
from scratch until he and Burns launched "The Wire" in 2002. Though with
"The Wire," even the phrase "television series" is somewhat misleading. Each
season is more like a 13-hour film, or a 13-chapter novel, that grows
steadily more engrossing as it unfolds.

Last year the program explored corruption on the waterfront, with the tale
of a union official who dealt with criminals not to feather his own nest but
to reverse the declining fortunes of the port, with terrible results; the
story was closer in spirit to a classical tragedy than a police procedural.
The program's other major story line centers around the West Baltimore drug
trade, with battles between gangs for territory and within them for status
and power. It sometimes feels like one of Shakespeare's history plays, if
there is a history play that looks without flinching at the bankruptcy of
the drug war, the intersection between crime and politics, and the
day-to-day deprivations of inner-city poverty.

We spoke with Simon in July 2004, as production for the third season drew to
a close.

Would you describe The Wire as a cynical show?

David Simon: It's cynical about institutions, and about their capacity for
serving the needs of the individual. But in its treatment of the actual
characters, be they longshoremen or mid-level drug dealers or police
detectives, I don't think it's cynical at all. I think there's a great deal
of humanist affection.

The Wire draws heavily on Ed Burns' experiences as a policeman. But though
you cast yourself as a reporter in one episode, there hasn't been an
inside-the-job look at a journalist's life. Is that something you're
thinking about doing in the future?

We might glance at it a little bit. One of the sad things about contemporary
journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost
inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to
outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage.

I think if you look at what journalism has achieved in terms of parsing the
events that got us into this war in Iraq, or the truth about what happened
in the election  I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of
daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty
dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably
ineffectual.

Do you think you can raise that kind of outrage with a TV show?

I don't. The Wire will have an effect on the way a certain number of
thoughtful people look at the drug war. It will not have the slightest
effect on the way the nation as a whole does business. Nor is that my intent
in doing the show. My intent is to tell a good story that matters to myself
and the other writers  to tell the best story we can about what it feels
like to live in the American city.

What's the show's underlying message about the drug war?

That it's a fraud. It's all over except for the tragedy and the shouting and
the wasted lives. That'll continue. But the outcome has never been in doubt.

I've seen one writer citing The Corner to make the case that the drug war
needs to be fought harder

 What idiot was that?

His name was Eli Lehrer. [Lehrer said the book "vividly describes just how
bad life became in a typical inner-city neighborhood" after Baltimore's
then-Mayor Kurt Schmoke came out for a less punitive approach to the drug
war. In fact, Schmoke's police department locked up more people for drug
crimes than any previous administration.] He was writing in the American
Enterprise Institute's magazine.

Ed Burns and I spoke at one of those groups. There came this point where a
guy said, "Well, what is the solution? Give me the paragraph; give me the
lede. What's the solution, if not drug prohibition?"

I very painstakingly said: "Look. For 35 years, you've systematically
deindustrialized these cities. You've rendered them inhospitable to the
working class, economically. You have marginalized a certain percentage of
your population, most of them minority, and placed them in a situation where
the only viable economic engine in their hypersegregated neighborhoods is
the drug trade. Then you've alienated them further by fighting this
draconian war in their neighborhoods, and not being able to distinguish
between friend or foe and between that which is truly dangerous or that
which is just illegal. And you want to sit across the table from me and say
'What's the solution?' and get it in a paragraph? The solution is to undo
the last 35 years, brick by brick. How long is that going to take? I don't
know, but until you start it's only going to get worse."

And the guy looked at me and went, "But what's the solution?" He said it
again. Ed Burns restrained me.

You've suggested that the third season is going to look at political reform.

Reform of all kinds. Political reform, reform within the department, reform
within the drug trade. Reform is the theme.

You'll see a political component. But the theme of reform is not just
political. There will be several characters who will present themselves as
potential reformers. Some of them actually will be reformist, and some of
them will not. Part of the season, from the viewer's perspective, is
figuring out who's who.

What kind of reaction does the show get from the police?

I thought we'd get a bad reaction, because it clearly is very down on the
drug war. In the middle of the first season, after it was clear what the
tone of the show was, I went to the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police] lodge
off of 41st Street [in Baltimore]. I basically was going to say, "OK, I'm
ready to take everybody's shit. What do you have to say?" And they just kept
reciting scenes back to me that had made them laugh, that felt real to them.

Ed was a cop for 20 years. I covered that world for 13. We didn't get the
shit wrong. A lot of the guys knew the stuff we were referring to, the cases
that we were stealing from.

Have you gotten any reaction from the local criminal community?

They like it. Around the courthouse, there's a hilarious wiretap of people
on a Monday talking about the Sunday night episode. I was dying to get ahold
of it, but it never became public  most wiretap stuff doesn't, unless it's
brought into evidence.

How does your experience doing The Wire compare to your experience doing
Homicide?

HBO's a lot smarter than NBC. They can afford to be. They don't care if
you're watching every show on HBO. If you're a subscriber and you're only
getting it for two shows out of 10, they've still got your $17.95. And
therein lies all the difference.

That's a model that can't exist in network TV because of the need to present
the maximum number of viewers to advertisers. That leads to decisions about
story, character, and theme on network TV that are just destructive. They
were destructive on Homicide. Compromises had to be made.

What writer wants to make compromises with story? Story is the only reason
you're in it.