6 posts tagged “the wire”

Video: Show us a clip from your current favorite TV show.

Holy crap!

Looking for fave movie scenes for my last post, I did a "Hudsucker Proxy" search. This is one of my favorite movies, but I haven't seen it in 6 years or so.

Anyway, came across the clip:

My brain: "Say, the guy who plays buzz looks familiar... so very familiar... saw him on TV just tonight... looks like... PREZBO!"

An IMDB search confirms it. I just blew my own mind. That guy has range.

In other news, this here is Buster:

What were your top 5 TV shows of 2006?

1. The Wire (of course)
2. Battlestar Gallactaca
3. Heroes
   
4. Lost
5. The Office

Deadwood and Arrested Development probably belong on the list, but I don't remember which bits were new in 06.

Had I seen all of it, "30 Rock" may have made the list. The two episodes we've seen were delightful. But we chose the wrong SNLish number show at the beginning of the year.

Feel like I'm forgetting something.

In place of the regular show last week, the network aired a special "Tom in L.A." double episode. My new employer has an office in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, loaded up with several of the good people I'll be working with day to day, so these trips should be a regular thing.

I spent the majority of my time working in a big, flat, cubicle-filled office building, sleeping in a ho-hum Hilton room with a clanging air conditioner, and driving down highways with "the" at the beginning of them in an aging rented Sebring (white, of course). But I did squeeze in a small slice of Hollywood adventure. My long-time friend from the old country is a writer's assistant on the television program "Scrubs," and a general Hollywood man about town. I'll call him Bob Sacamano for the purposes of this post.

Bob Sacamano and his lady started me off with a trip to an excellent Mexican restaurant. Nothing especially Hollywood about this, except that both of them work on TV shows, and we talked about that. I kept my cool for a while, but then I learned that Bob Sacamano's lady had worked on "Homicide" (Life on the Street) and "Oz." Also, through Homicide, she knows David Simon, esteemed co-creator of "The Wire." These are three of my favorite shows, so I geeked out a bit and pumped her for information. I won't betray her trust here, but let's just say I got the insider's jerk and hairpiece report.

After that, we drove back to Bob Sacamano's place, and then headed out on foot for The Dresden Room to see Marty and Elayne. These are the aging lounge singers of "Swingers" fame (Tiny E reminds me that they were also featured on the Daily Show). On the way there, we passed another Hollywood landmark, the apartments in the exterior establishing shots for Melrose Place. Here's a terrible nighttime camera phone shot:

I hopped in the Sebring and drove back to the Hilton after that, but met up with Bob Sacamano again the next day on the "Scrubs" set, for a behind-the-scenes tour. Turns out, they shoot and run the show in a former hospital, which seems like something an eight-year-old would assume but that would never actually be the case. The sets, offices, dressing rooms, etc. are all spread out through this creaky old building. Bob Sacamano walked me through the whole place, including highly recognizable spots like J.D.'s apartment, and then brought me up to watch them shoot a scene. Along the way, I met Sarah Chalke (who is very nice) and many hospitable behind-the-scenes people. I saw but did not approach Zach Braff and Neil Flynn (the janitor) (on the show) . One conversational highlight was someone asking me if I was "in the business." Felt like Alvy Singer for a second, even though I didn't have a good snappy answer.

I wrapped up the night with a nuanced turn as an orderly in the background of one shot. Bob Sacamano says it's 99% certain that I'll appear on the show, which will probably air sometime in February. So, I can add this to my resume, right under my appearance as "70s medical student" in the Robin Williams picture "Patch Adams."

That was pretty much it for the first trip, but I expect I'll be out there again in a few months for more shenanigans. Any recommendations on what I should see and do? Keep in mind that I'll only have free time after work, on weekdays. And that I'm happily married. And that I'm a complete square. I can roll down the window and put down the top, but a big nasty redhead at my side is definitely out.

What TV show(s) will you be watching this season? Why? 
Submitted by ducnly.vox.com.

I'll probably "watch" a bunch of junk, but only peeking over the top of my laptop screen and asking "wait, what did that dude just say?" when it's my turn. I'll watch those because they're on TV and Internet tastes better with TV in the background.

But I'll actually close the laptop and obsess over these:

• The Wire
• The Wire reruns
• The Wire On Demand
• The Wire Latina
• The Wire Extreme Makeover Edition
• The Omar and Brother Mouzone Mysteries
• Lost
• The Office
• Battlestar Galactica (seriously: this is awesome)
• The Simpsons (til the bitter end, my friends. Til the bitter end)
• Veronica Mars (seriously: this is also a treat)

Tiny E and I are giving these young upstarts a shots at the big leagues, but with laptops up for now:

• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (or something like that -- one of the worst show names ever)
• 30 Rock (the other NBC Saturday Night Live show)
• Jericho (Skeet Ulrich = boo, but George Hearst/Major Dad and possible nuclear holocaust = yay)
• The Nine

If HBO feels like rolling anything else out this year, I'll watch that too.

Speaking of which: HBO R-rated sci-fi show? Any takers?

If you could write a book about anything, what would it be about?

"How I Made a Billion Dollars Playing Video Games, Drinking Jameson's, Posting to Vox and Watching the Wire: One American Hero's Astonishing True Story"