Omar

In the early hours of yesterday morning I watched the last couple of episodes of the third season of The Wire. The climax, thoroughly splendid though it was, felt oddly anti-climactic, but in a clever way, reflecting the ceaseless frustration at the heart of the day-to-day life of a Baltimore Poe-lease. Ending aside, the season as a whole was one of the most excitingly subversive things I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t seen it, you must, for it depicts what might happen in a drug-fucked inner-city ghetto if drugs were effectively legalised. It’s very powerful and in my most ‘orribly ‘umble, very important telly. And you know, it goes all the way to the President. He loves The Wire.

So anyway, the other day I found out something which surprised the bejeesus out of me. It concerns Michael K Williams, the actor who plays everybody’s favourite character, gay gangster Omar Little with such ferocious charisma that Barack Obama, officially the world’s most charismatic man, was like, totally blown away. He’s also soon to be seen in an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which I really must read, apparently. And this is the thing: midway through filming The Wire, Williams took time out to dress up as a cop and mouth the words of one of history’s most misunderestimated artists, Our Kelly.

Unfortunately, it’s unembeddable, but please, particularly if you’ve never seen it, do enjoy the scarred master in this, my favourite chapter from Our Kelly’s masterwork, Trapped in the Closet. I insist.

And when you’ve watched that – and only then - you must watch or rewatch this. Then you must sit back smugly, full of good humour and fine wine and you must marvel at the beautiful brilliance of the modern world. And then you must mutter the word ‘intertextuality’, softly, under your breath, and then laugh it off, embarrassed, slightly theatrical. Then you must storm out of the room pretending to have left a pan of shrimps boiling.

This is the last of the grass I smuggled North from Londonshire. By this I mean this, this fingerbread guffstuff. Then I’m clean, man. And that peeves me, because a joint in the evening is good for me. It’s great brain-oil. And it peeves me because drugs will never go away. Whether we’re talking about my harmless drugs or other people’s nasty drugs, they’re all here to stay. We really should start working with them. And my hope is that if President Obama can unflinchingly appreciate the emotional intelligence and brutal morality of Omar Little, then maybe he’s the man to move the west a little closer to a properly regulated approximation of Hamsterdam. That, for me, would be an evolutionary coup. Not Needle Park madness, but something that actually addresses the problem. I like for example the sound of the heroin maintenance programme described in this eminently readable article right here, and I propose that we do something similar in this country, specifically tailored to my desire for the ‘erb. Until then, there’s a place up the coast from here called Blyth that I every much like the sounds of. It sounds blithe. I might go there this weekend.

Now, seconds out. Season Four. Actually, fuck it - let the seconds stay. We're all family here.

Election Night :: Help Me Believe

‘…America, the Land of the Free, they said,
And of opportunity, in a just and a truthful way,
But where the president is never black, female or gay,
And until that day, you've got nothing to say
To me, to help me believe.’

- America Is Not The World, Morrissey

So here we are, at long last, just a handful of hours away from the very real possibility of America finally having something to say to Morrissey, to help him believe. That’s a pretty exciting prospect. How much more compelling an argument do you, my American readers, need, in order to cast your vote for Barack Obama?

Just imagine, after all these years, you will finally be offered the ear, and indeed the heart, of one of the greatest misanthropes of our time. Morrissey will listen to what you have to say and then, importantly, crucially, he will begin to believe. Of course, when this happens, presumably, Morrissey will no longer just sit around at home in his hemp tank top, spurning the company of peoplefolk, leafing listlessly through a copy of Lady Windermere's Fan and pushing a cold Linda McCartney sausage around a plate with a pearl-handled fork.

Rather, he will finally see the full potential of humankind. He will understand that human beings are not merely self-serving, terrified egotists and short-sighted egotistical terrorists who will happily trample all over one another in order to satisfy the small-minded desires of themselves and their own clan, but rather they are also - potentially - wonderful, giving, caring, selfless creatures who are prepared to go out of their way to help one another achieve the potential that each of them shares.

He may never write a decent song again, but to heck with it. It’ll be worth it.

And to make this happen, you, my American friend, must cast your vote for Barack Obama. If you haven’t already.

I’m sure you’ve seen this:



Please don’t let it be you.

It’s odd how much I want Barack Obama to win tonight.

Frankly, it scares me.

I was born just two years before Margaret Thatcher came to power. I had to wait till I was 19 before I got a sniff of a left wing government. The first time I voted was to help bring Tony Blair to power. I was so excited. I had never been that excited by politics before. Nor since, sadly. Indeed, my excitement, and the joy I felt when Tony Blair came to power was very short-lived.

It quickly became apparent that New Labour was not really anything to do with old Labour, and nothing at all to do with Socialism, of which I had always been rather fond. It wasn’t long at all before promises were broken, U-turns were made and bullshit and sleaze were just as evident under Labour as they had been for nearly two decades under the Conservatives.

In short, the last 11 years of ‘left wing’ government in this country has left me utterly cynical and disgustingly apathetic. Many, many times since Labour came to power I have told anyone that would listen that I hate politics, and that I despise politicians. And I blame this Labour government’s for that. They destroyed it for me.

But Barack Obama has got me excited again.

Which is why I’m scared. I’m scared that - like everyone else - he is going to allow power to corrupt.

I’m also scared he’s going to get shot before he can even start letting people down.

But what the hell. Life is full of fear, and life is full of disappointments. It’s also full of pleasant surprises, and hey, maybe this will be one of them.

And for that reason, I’m excited again. And I want to believe.

Please help me.

Now I’m going to go and get Keith, who is sitting upstairs being sad, and I’m going to make him come downstairs and watch the election coverage with me. I’ve got in some ironic food. I’ve got McCain Oven Chips, sixteen cans of Budweiser and some Oreos.

Cool.

What can go wrong?

Insane God Man Vs Barack Obama

This is pretty much the stupidest thing you will see all year.

Enjoy.