“The bell of the blessed Jerome!” says he, grabbing me by the wrist, bidding me stand upright. “What is it, damn it? Jesus have you cut a man’s face off have you? Have you cut a man’s face off and nailed it to a plough, and ploughed the each of the fields in the land with the poor bastard’s face, have you done?”
“No” I says, “No - God Father what I would give for a sin the class of that to be upon me - twenty dozen sins of such stock would I take over this one Sin now of mine.”
“Well what is it? What is this lamentable Sin that has you twisted and bent there like a dirty tramp?”
“Father…” says I. “Father… I have never seen The Wire.”
He took a step back, eyes wide. “You…”
“I have never seen The Wire.”
“But…”
“I just never got round to it, Father. I just…”
The wind from western ways a-willowin’. The dusk by inches nearing.
“Sufferin’ Noah” he says, fingers kneading the brow. “Sufferin’ Noah bifkin barin' ‘fore them wains. You have never seen The Wire…”
“Never.”
“Well Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and all of the teeth of Teresa. You have never seen The Wire. You dirty fuckin’ tramp.”
For few are they, indeed - the sins that we cannot make some sort of concession for in this Here and this Now, with all of us as lost and afeared as we are, and as crunched rotten with the credit, and as skint and as jobless and dope-sick and demented.
Few are the sins that we cannot forgive or at least in some way understand.
But that a man or a woman might not have seen The Wire just yet…?
How? How, for the love of the G we’ve long since robbed from the god hung there above the mantle, how can a man have lived one or two days in the years spanning 2000 and something to 2000 and something else and not have seen The Wire? How can a man have heard tell of this astonishing piece of work, this thing that wants to tell seven thousand stories all at once and all of them stories the finest stories anyone’s ever been told since Ovid was runnin’ rings around the olden times gabblin’ on about trees and numbers and horses, how can he have heard tell of this, and have watched on Youtube the bits with Steve Earle in, and not have been struck immediately with the compulsion to see more, to see all, to know, to gorge, to gorge on the hoor and be flush with the thirst then to fart, to fart all of the day and the night the fumes of that feast that is feast without equal, to fart and to be drunk on the thought of them farts, farts of the most complexical and awe-inspiring character, farts so astonishing that the mere rumour of their possibility would be enough to bring Gargantua crashing like a clap of wet shite to the kerbside, wailing with the bitterest envies, tearing the very eye out his great and mighty willy-spongle, cursing his own colossal arse for all of the useless, pathetic hoorbags ever was?
![Generation Kill [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qZO7-EfdL._SL120_.jpg)
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
ah, a duke by any other name...
what I found intriguing about the show is how during the fog of war everyone seems to being engaged in a war of their own. sure, there are frequent intersections, but never for too long. the actor who played Capt. America seemed to revel in his character's unadulterated jackassery.
now, go rent The Wire
2 - Aaron McMullan
Sir Bicho, i have promised to myself if no-one else that i will finally get to The Wire sometime in the next couple months. Also, I'm intrigued no end by - The Corner, is it called? The pre-Wire drug dealer number? But one thing at a time, and any Thing involving Steve Earle is always going to be the priority.
The private wars - yes, that struck me also, and what it arrived on the back of - the sense of each individual being absoloutely, totally removed from the ernormity of what they were doing - that was often fairly terrifying.
Few more chilling scenes have I spied in these past whiles, for example, than that in which the Whopper Jr. business was explained.
3 - El Bicho
The Corner is very good as well, and less of a time commitment. A year on the streets of Baltimore that will no doubt take the wind out of your sails from a devastating gob-smack as the last episode hits the final sequence before the credits.
re: the removed from the enormity bit. I think what that comes from is how can any training prepare them for what they find. They have to step back to protect themselves rather than risking becoming part of the chaos that surrounds them.
A scene that sticks with me is when they are in Baghdad and the solider tries to fire a warning shot at the oncoming car. brutal.
4 - Mary K. Williams
Well Duke - your Priest would be all over my --- if he knew that I too, have never seen The Wire. Nor Generation Kill for that matter.
Although your views on the latter are as entertaining as always - hilarious even - I have no inclination to see either project.
Now, El B - don't yell at me! : )
5 - Aaron McMullan
Sir Bicho - that sequence stuck with me also, although the one that has blazed the fiercest is the encounter with that shell-shocked soldier wandering half-mad about the roadside. An instance of What The Hell Are We Doing puncturing the fugg amidst the fog, to fairly devestatin effect.
Sir Mary - maybe we could set up a support group of some kind for such lamentable cases as we. On the Facebook - Dammit I Have Never Seen The Wire Just Yet! Who would be brave enough to join us? A rare one indeed.
6 - Aaron Fleming
Excellent, and welcome Aaron McMullan to the world of blogcritics. A young chap such as yourself, with energy such as your own, and a pen razor-sharp and inked with mighty imaginative insight, will fit in quickly and without obstacles to the ways of BC. Always good to discover fellow northern irish writerly folks, especially ones living out their lives in London, contributing to this dear site. We must get together some time to discuss our common neglect of the Wire. Are you familiar with the Salisbury on Green Lanes, perchance?
7 - Aaron McMullan
Heh, well thank you Sir Fleming, and do you know this, i HAVE encountered that tavern - many's the squad o' holligans - googleigans - i have encountered therein. i dare say we could show them a thing or two about what Sister Act was called in Mexico, them crowd.