WEBVTT - David Simon 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:05.960 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:15.120 Some critics called The Wire the greatest television show of 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.960 all time. It ain't nothing like they make it out 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.239 to be. The HBO series explored Baltimore's drug scene and 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.440 the corruption of the city's social, governmental, and media institutions. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:29.760 How many years you're thinking we've been doing this same ship. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:36.320 Fans of The Wire seemed most attached to its authentic characters, 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.960 people like Lieutenant Cedric Daniels, the Greek who smuggled drugs 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:45.720 and humans, middle schooler Dukie Weims, drug kingpin, prop Joe. 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:50.440 State your name for the record, Omar Devon Little and 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:56.880 of course Omar, And what is your occupation occupation? What 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.800 exactly do you do for a living? Mr? Little? A 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:07.600 rip and run you arrives drug dealings. When you ask 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.480 David Simon, the show's creator and my guest today, which 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:16.959 character he loved writing most, he invariably answers Baltimore. Baltimore 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.360 looms large in Simon's life. He got his start as 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:24.840 a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Simon wrote Homicide, A 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.840 Year on the Killing Streets about his time spent with 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.319 the Baltimore Police Homicide Unit, and then he created The 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.679 Corner for HBO, a mini series based on his book 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.920 about the open air drug market in West Baltimore. You 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.360 might assume David Simon grew up in Baltimore in a 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:45.200 family with a tradition of law enforcement. He didn't. He 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.360 was raised in Washington, d c. In a family where 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.960 the tradition was words. My father was a professional jew 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:54.720 by which I mean he was the pure director for 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.040 ben a Birth, which is like a Jewish service organization, 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:01.000 and he did that for thirty years. Argument was a 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.720 way of of communicating. I mean, rhetoric was prized in 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.120 my household. Simon's father had wanted to be a journalist, 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.440 he had studied it in college, but with a growing family, 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.560 he opted for the security of public relations. His son, David, 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:19.079 inherited his dad's passion for newsprint. You know, once he 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:22.200 saw that I was interested in newspapers as a teenager, 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.960 he was like throwing like Swope and Damon Runyon and like, 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.240 you know, watch what he does here. And and then 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:29.960 once I got involved with the son, he threw Mankan 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:31.880 at me. And so I was reading old guys, you 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.160 know who A kind of newspaper style that isn't even 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.400 allowed anymore, you know, and so I'm not sure man 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.200 can can get published. David Simon wrote for his high 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.400 school paper in Bethesda, Maryland, and continued writing in college. 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:45.920 I worked on the college paper at Maryland, and uh, 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.119 I sort of wrote my way onto the Sun. Um. 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.040 I was a stringer for a year and sort of 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.239 paid thirty bucks a story. And I had so many 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.760 buyolines that the unions have sort of had to formally complain. 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:57.840 And so, you know, you gotta hire him if he's 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.919 writing this much like a hundred violins. And the Metro 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.560 editor told the union quietly, look, when he graduates, we're 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.720 gonna hire him. So uh and they did. You know, 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:08.360 I didn't have to do the three or four years 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.120 in Rono or like a smaller market paper to get 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:15.800 to a major Metro daily. I got lucky. And that's 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:17.959 what were you writing those hundred by lines when you 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:19.920 were at the school. I was still trying to get 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:21.359 out of you know. By the time I finished editing 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.799 the Diamondback, which was a broadsheet five days a week 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.120 paper at Maryland, I had maybe sixty five credits. I 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:30.920 failed out, so many times I was the editor, so 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.560 I failed out two semesters in a row, just for last. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:37.119 You're a professional newspaperman who was hiding in a college basically, 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:39.000 you know what. I try to say that to my father, 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:45.160 but he had he pissed away the the Yeah, you know, 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.080 I'm not sure he bought it. But um I got in. 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:49.720 So I still had to get a degree. Even after 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:51.840 I finished editing the paper. You know, I was. I 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.440 was on a five year plus summer plan. But what 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:55.920 do you write about? And while I was there, I 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.240 became their stringer. I don't know that I was looking. 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:00.720 You know. It wasn't like I had the world as 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:02.600 my oyster and I could have chosen a day. As 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.920 soon as I got hired at the Sun, it was like, understood, 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:07.960 that's where I'm going, you know. But I didn't know 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.440 Baltimore at all. I mean, I Baltimore was one of 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.000 those places I drove through to go visit relatives in 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.400 New York and you'd like drive that, you know, the 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.000 Harvard Tunnel and auto graveyards and you know, rusting peers, 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.560 and you'd think, you know, my god, you know, you 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.400 take a wrong turn if you end up here, you know, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.560 but you began at the Sun in no later than that, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.320 So in any three, you started the Sun and you 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.840 developing a very deep understanding of Baltimore slowly, I'd say 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:39.680 the first few years, I was just trying to figure 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.720 out how to do reporting. Um what'd you write about 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:44.880 in the beginning? Well, the same thing I wrote about 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:46.479 at the end. Uh. I never read the joke because 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:48.760 I never got promoted. I was a police reporter. I 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.200 started as a night police reporter, which was very reactive. 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:53.359 You know, you come in at four pm and you 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.480 leave it to you know what, it's all what happened yesterday, 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.200 police said, police said, police said. And eventually I would 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.800 have graduated to covering crime as an issue or the 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:06.400 drug policy stuff as issues. But I never really got 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.240 out of the crime game. Did your attitude towards the 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.640 police and policing evolve over the time that you were 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:14.160 the reporter? Yeah, I mean I learned to respect good 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:18.320 policing and I still do. Um And eventually I learned that, UM, 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.560 I had to move away from the singular point of 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.040 view of the cops because it's very easy when you're 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.200 a reporter in the beginning to embrace who's giving you information. 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:30.599 So if you're covering the courts, you know, you're listening 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.360 to lawyers, and if you're covering the station house, the cops, 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.480 you're going to. You know, it was much more accessible 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:37.200 to go to the Western District and have their version 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:39.560 of events than to go to the fourteen hundred block 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.359 of Carrollton and talk to the neighbors who you know, 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.520 didn't trust the Baltimore Sun to begin. I mean, it 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:46.840 was a predominately black city and most of the crime 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.360 was rooted in the in the black community. And so 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:51.760 I'm a white guy who grew up in the suburbs, 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.320 So I got almost no skill set when it comes 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.279 to but you know, there's an awful lot you can 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.080 accomplish by just coming back and showing you know, showing 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:01.520 up is a little bit of the battle, and then 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.000 being willing to ask a stupid question, when do you 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:11.120 finish writing for the Sun? You stopped when up. Yeah, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.240 the paper was going in a bad direction. It was 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.640 the beginning of what was happening in newspapers, but it 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.120 was not. And you mentioned that there were limitations put 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:19.599 on you in the work you were doing. What were 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:23.719 those what they valued in journalism, I had very little 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.320 regard for and what I valued um, I wasn't unable 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:28.919 to convey to the importance of it to them. I 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.520 mean we were speaking different languages. The guys who came 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.240 in once we were brought up by the chains, and 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.080 it wasn't that they wanted mediocre things. It was that 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.040 they actually had deep ambitions, but they were sort of 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.680 the prize culture ambitions. Five part series The Baltimore Sun 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.479 has learned it's better if it's unsourced, even if the 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:48.080 source would go on the record. It makes it sound 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.280 like we did more work. I mean, there was like 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.719 almost a formula, and I was much more interested in 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.760 how the city actually works or doesn't work, and that 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.000 stuff is complicated, and like if you're trying to slice 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.600 off a five part series or three part series of 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.839 outrage in order to win a prize, you have to 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.159 discard the stuff that is maybe going the other way, 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.240 or it makes the issue complicated. I mean, one of 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.520 the editors that The Sun who became predominant when I 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:14.400 when I knew it was time to leave. He'd won 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.680 one a couple of Politzers in Phildelphia, and one of 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.040 them was for and I'm sure they were very good stories, 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.000 but but one of them was very literally it was 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.120 the canine unit of the police department. The dogs are 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.560 biting too many people. They're biting more people than in 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:32.440 other cities. And I'm sure the series has its merits, 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.239 but not everything is you know, the real issues facing 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:37.840 American cities are and if we can just get the 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:39.680 dogs to stuff by, you know, It's like I was 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.320 much more interested in why isn't the drug word? Yeah? Yeah, 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.560 like you know, why why are we doing the same 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.560 things over and over again? And having lesson what did 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.440 you think was wrong with Baltimore? What do you think 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.480 we're Baltimore's biggest problems? Nothing that isn't wrong with most 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.200 of the urban American policy at this point, which is 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.440 but I mean one of the more more fundamental problems 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.120 was they were committed to a national drug probably and 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:03.760 that is just incredibly destructive. And now we would if 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.000 you stop in ninety five you said this when you 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.520 took the buy out from them, and then and then 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.040 were you a television person, you would television and watcher 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.800 you he did you end up? It was a mistake. 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.520 It's really been a hilarious mistake. One of my dear 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.800 friends who died while we were working on Tremay was 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.000 David Mills, and we worked on the college paper together. 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.040 And I remember being on a college paper and this 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:30.720 is the time of Hill Street, Blues and st Elsewhere 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.600 in those shows, and I could admire the craft of 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.440 those shows and see that something sort of fresh was happening. 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:38.880 But I was, you know, I was in my early twenties, 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:40.480 and I wasn't hanging around to watch. I can never 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:42.199 get in front of the television set on the right night, 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:43.719 so I caught a little of it here and there. 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.920 But David and we'd be rolling the paper at ten 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:48.599 o'clock at night, and it's like, you know, we're just 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:50.800 trying to get the pages out to get them printed, 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:52.959 and David would like, go hold on, I gotta go 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:54.840 watch Hill Street. And he'd go into the office and 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:56.719 sit down with a little black and white TV and 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.400 watch it as if it mattered. And we tease him 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.320 and be like you, some people like Dave, the page 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.000 isn't gonna roll about. Bless them, right, God blessed them. 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.160 So I was not. I watched sports and I watched 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.600 uh reruns a Bilco and Honeymooners with my dad. You know. 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.160 It was like a sharing experience, you know, that's it. 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.360 The newspapers had primacy in my house. It was just 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:20.760 back when people got more than one paper, right, we 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.400 got The Star Morning in an evening, Washington Star, Washington 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.319 Post Times on Sundays. So when you leave the Sun, 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.120 what do you do? Well? I had a bunch of 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.840 opportunities there. I mean, I was working on a second book. 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:33.640 I'd written a book called Homicide and when I was 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.040 a reporter, and it was a nonfiction narrative of a 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.880 year I spent in the homicid Haughton Mifflin once, I said, 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:41.520 the police depart in Baltimore was letting me into the 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.199 homicide unit for a year. That access sort of guaranteed 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:45.520 that I was going to get some kind of advance 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:47.480 that I could live on. Well, I researched the book, 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.839 and so there was a little bit of an auction small, 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:53.480 you know, enough that I got enough to live on 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.800 and uh took a year's leave of absence from the 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.599 paper when the unit wrote. The book came out in 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.240 ninety one and Barry Levinson, the filmmaker from Baltimore, he 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.080 bought it and he was looking to make a show 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.680 at NBC and and they they made Homicide, and it 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:09.920 was this weird step child. Because I was I went 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.720 back to the Sun. I didn't think much of it. No, no, 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:15.720 I mean I just sold him the book. And my 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.720 brother Daniel did that show. That's right, of course, and 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:21.760 we had we were gonna get there eventually. Yeah, so 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.160 that this this this step child from my book is 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.559 existing and I go back to being a reporter. Gail 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.280 Matrix offered me the chance to write the pilot, and 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:34.000 I said, maybe wisely, maybe not wisely, because I didn't 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:35.760 know what the hell I would have been doing. I said, 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:37.400 get somebody who knows what they're doing to do this. 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.480 I'm a I'm a newspaperman. But maybe unwisely when I 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.400 saw the per episode royalty that went to that guy, 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.320 you know, and I said, once you have some scripts together, 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.040 send me so I'll see the template. Maybe I'll try 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.640 to write one in the head. Yeah, we wrote one 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.000 late in first season, and it was so dark and 0:10:55.040 --> 0:11:00.000 so depressing that NBC wouldn't make it. The show starts 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.560 starts running, and and I wrote this one script with 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:04.640 David Mills, Like when when they gave me the assidement 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.240 and they said, yeah, I take a script. I said, well, 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.360 I don't know TV from Adam, but David loved this stuff, 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:12.400 and so I called him up. He was at the 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.720 Washington Post at the time. We've gone on to different newspapers, 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.480 and I said, how you been, how's it going. We're 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.400 gonna write a TV script. We got about two weeks 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:22.719 and so we hold up and we turned this thing 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.960 in and about half of it was our stuff. It 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.240 turned out to be an episode that Robin Williams was in. Um, 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.480 they cast Robin Williams in the sort of the lead 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.320 guest part, and once they cast him, they had to 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.960 like give him more scenes. Um. So, uh, some of 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.360 our stuff got tossed, but about half of our stuff 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.320 of it was probably our our pages. So I thought 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.040 we'd failed miserably. You know, if you're half rewritten on 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.040 a newspaper, if if half your story isn't your words, 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:50.640 if the rewrite man had to come behind you for 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.680 that much, you know, you screwed up. So I was 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:55.560 sort of ashamed and like, well, okay, I guess we 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.440 didn't do what they wanted. But they came back and 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:01.800 offers us another script. And so at some point there's 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.440 this buyout from my newspaper on the table, and the 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.679 newspapers going in the direction I don't admire, and they 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.760 offered me a job in that window. So I wrote 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:12.920 two scripts in the course of like a month, one 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.640 for NYPD Blue and one for Homicide, and I admired 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:20.120 both shows and and and they were both very fair offers. 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.600 Tom Fontana said, I'll teach you how to do this, 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.800 and you're gonna want to learn how to actually produce. Yes, 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:31.320 he kept that promise with a Vengeance pretty much everything. 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.480 One of the most successful TV writers you know, and 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.760 I mean in the end, Tom was as good as 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.440 his word in the sense of at first, all you're 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.319 doing is writing, and you're just moving scenes, and you're 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.720 you know, filling in, you know, but eventually set coverage 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:51.600 and protecting the writing when it's on set and shooting, well, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.400 you want to make sure that you're getting the intention 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:57.439 of the scene, because merely because it's a script doesn't 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.520 mean it's it's it's headed for anywhere good. You have 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.120 to protect it all at the same time giving the 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:07.000 actors and the director a chance two make it their 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:08.800 own as well. But you have to keep the core 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.280 value of what the story is. And I've come to 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.400 believe that, you know, if you have a good crew, 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:15.560 if you have good actors, everybody's kind of a well 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.680 sharpened tool, and if they know their business, they're doing 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:22.000 exactly what they're supposed to do. But somebody has to 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.280 look out for story as a whole and protect story 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.199 as a whole, particularly in an intricate drama. That's some 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.800 sets I've been on. The actors are better at keeping 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:32.200 their eye on the story as a whole than the 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.440 writers themselves. I've not found that, but that may be 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.440 something that you and I were going to differ on 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.360 to the end of time. Everybody has to settle for 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.360 at certain points for eighty five or nine or even 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.240 eight percent of your intention. As you go into the 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.560 day's work, there comes that moment where you're fighting to 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.480 get six and then then there's trouble then that it 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.199 has to be resolved because that's not enough. But I mean, 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.640 I think in some ways you have to leave room 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.160 for everybody to be creative and and that it's that's 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:01.760 a real thinks. I learned that. And then you know 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.720 somewhere at about a year and a half, I was 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:07.480 summoned to New York to sit by the Avid and 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.440 watch what Tom did when he cut. And that was 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:12.960 another education. You know, at a certain point you get 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.600 sent to casting. You know there's a whole skill set 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:17.839 of shore running that And when did that end? When 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:23.360 did you walk away from Hamish? Homicide ended in so 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.160 as homicide is winding down and you either sense that 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:29.960 it's going to end, or didn't end abruptly, or you 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:31.480 kind of knew it was coming. They I took the 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.440 job with homicide, thinking I'll do this while I was 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.680 working on a very complicated manuscript of of my second book, 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:40.120 which was about a drug The year spent on the 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:42.720 Drug Corner was a follow up to Homisi Corner. Yeah, 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.880 a drug corner in West Bontimore. So were you was 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.680 the wire something that you were cooking up while you 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.440 were developing and or shooting and or posting and or 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:55.200 debuting the Corner. A lot of people think the Wire 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.560 came in the wake of the Sopranos, But when we 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.360 wrote the Wire scripts for the first seas and we 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.000 hadn't seen the Sopranos, we were we were writing in 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.000 the absence of the Sprans. We were writing in the 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.440 shadow of oz. Oz was the first time that HBO 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:09.960 had ventured into this. Hey, we'll put it on TV 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.840 and you've never seen it before on TV territory. So 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.440 that was when I saw the pilot of ALS. I 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:17.760 went to Tom and said, you know, you could do 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.840 a show about a drug corner. And for reasons that 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.480 you know are elusive to me. Now, Tom and Barry 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:27.360 were joined at the hip, and Barry didn't want to 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:31.320 do the corner. Uh, you know, he didn't want to 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:33.960 send it up for series. I think Tom wanted to. 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.680 But you know it was and I think to give 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.160 that end up being a good thing for you. Yeah, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.280 I mean it ended up. Tom said a piece of 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:44.080 it to Tom. Right at the time, I was like, oh, 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.080 now I gotta walk into a room with an HBO 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.040 without Yeah, but what happened Tom set the meeting up. 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:51.360 What happened, Well, I got in the room and they 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.640 had already read the book, which was a miracle by 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.280 l A standards. You know, there wasn't a memo. Yeah, 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:58.080 two or three people in the room had actually read 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.440 the book, and I was trying to sell them the wire. Finally, 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.280 Karrie and Tholis, who was the head of mini series 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.200 at the time, said we just want you to do 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.120 the book. Can you just do the book as the 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.520 book is as a mini and I said, okay, you 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.960 know better than nothing. So I was in the mini 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.680 series business. The only caveat they had was, we happen 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.760 to notice you're not black and you're a co writer 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.200 who's ed Burn's former police detective on the corner. He's 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:25.960 not black either. Can you get a black you know? 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.360 Do you know any and I said, wow, there's this 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:29.920 to get a black guy in here? Yeah? Can we 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.240 can we make a marriage? Would you do well? I said, 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.200 I said, you know, I thought. They said, well, you 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.440 know I am. I know this guy, David Curtis Hall 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:42.400 came sprinting a producer. I had Dave Mills in my pocket. 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.200 I mean, we've been friends since college. So I said, 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.560 I know this guy Mills. You know. Literally, they thought 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:49.480 for the credibility of the series, you needed to have 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:51.240 an African American. I don't think they'll deny it to 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.880 this day. And they were nervous about presenting depictions of 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.560 African Americans that were rooted in the in the underclass 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:00.520 and probably very smartly, so right, and I don't blame them, 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:02.440 you know, to television, you know. So who did you 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.159 get again? Who was your Dave Mills? The guy from 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.640 Calm He was Dave Mills is black, so um Dave Mills, 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.240 and I said, And I walked out of the HBO building, 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.080 you know, into Century City and I basically I got 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:15.960 on my cell phone. I said, Dave, what are you 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:17.640 doing for the next year? Dave, I need a black 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:19.480 guy get over there. And he said, what do you 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:20.800 mean what am I doing? I think he was on 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.479 L A Law. He was, he was were doing episodes 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:25.680 for L A Law at the time. That's fine. And 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:27.879 I said, well, you're writing a miniseries based on the 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.359 Corner and he goes, I am. I said yeah, and 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:32.159 he goes, how did that come up? And I told him, 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:34.000 you know, he was laughing his ass off. He said, 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.679 all right, this is this will be good. So I 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.080 ended up doing that and then I thought it was 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.840 six it was six hours and it did okay. I mean, 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.160 nobody watched it. Who you know, it's it's the underclass 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.119 and it's America. You know, it's not like not like 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.320 people were dying for it. I thought we did very 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:50.760 well with it, was very true to the book. It 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:52.720 was very honest with the book, which I cared about. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.600 So both projects, so those are linked to books. Yeah, 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.120 and I'm thinking now I'm gonna go back and write 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:01.160 another book, which you know, believe me, if my book editor, 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.000 God bless him, John Sterling is listening right now, he's 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.159 just you know, he just spit out a couple of teeth. 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.399 But um, I'm thinking, I'm going back to books, and 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:10.600 I'm gonna go to a newspaper and I'm gonna I'm 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:12.880 going back to gonna go back period. Yeah, I'm going 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.520 back and now the windows you know, now that I 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.320 finished The Corner and Homicides over, it's a nice skill 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:20.360 set to have learned. But I'm not looking for for 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:23.800 I'm looking to go back and then the favorite words. 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.719 I like. I like reporting, I love reporting, I like 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.040 I like actually the time spent even on a fictional story, 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.080 the time spent an interest. There's something about you, not 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.320 that you have the answer that you like it a 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:41.440 little less, Uh, Glitzie, were you getting kind of fatigued 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.800 by that? And the East Coast guy and and I 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.040 will tell a story on myself and George Palcanno is 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.040 one of the novelist writers, a good friend of mine. 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.760 We're we're in l A for UH. I think we're 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.560 going to UH some meetings and and maybe an awards there. 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.320 I'm in l A usually six days a year for meetings. 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:00.240 George wanted to go to the I Vys. We got 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.560 a reservation at the ivy, and of course we were 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.040 down on the sidewalk for forty five minutes, you know, waiting, 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:11.000 and then the beautiful hostess comes down and looks around 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.040 and says, after they've taken every you know, every other 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:17.080 you know actor and says, Pelican party, Pelican party. You know, 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.400 I turned it, George, I said, we don't belong here. 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.320 They just sat Ruth Westimer before us. Let's go home. 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.479 I have very little patience for that stuff, not because 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:30.960 it sounds arrogant, sounds like, oh, he's such a down 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.240 to earth, you know, the Baltimore under his fingernails, and 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:35.760 you know, you go out there and you realize it's 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.320 not for everybody, No, it really is not. And and listen, 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.520 there's a lot to love about the entertainment industry, especially 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:43.920 when it goes well, and nobody's throwing the money back. 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.399 When when the residual checks come to your mailbox, you 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.480 don't throw them out on the ground and discuss thank you. Yeah, 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.680 no one know what ever says no thank you. But 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.359 I was supposed to write towards argument, like the stuff 0:19:55.440 --> 0:20:01.359 was supposed to be about something. Was it in the corner? Yeah? Yeah, 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.960 I mean it was, and you were gonna go write 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.120 another book about I think the next one was supposed 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.040 to be. In my head, I wanted to do the 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.399 working class. It was what what we what we canabalized 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.080 for season two of The Wire. First I had asked um, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.399 I've made some quiet inquiries about going to beth Steel, 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:20.879 the steel plant which was still sort of operating a 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.720 skeleton shift um in Baltimore, but very big steel plant, 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.720 and also the GM factory about whether they'd let me 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.480 work in the line. You know, I can't help it. 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.680 I'm from a different planet, which is journalism, and what 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.520 I'm really interested in it even in making film, even 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.120 as a filmmaker, is is the argument that can come 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:44.159 as a result of the narrative. I certainly don't know you, 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:48.919 but judging from your work Homicide and The Wire, and trema. 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.000 You seem like someone who comes from a you know, 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.920 a comfortable middle class existence and and and an educated background. 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.440 The plight of the poor or something that gnaws at you. Correct, 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:05.000 I'm interested in the story that has political import um 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:10.360 and and that can say something fresh and worthy of argument. 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:12.800 I'm not sure I ever sort of saw it as 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:18.240 being socialism. Yeah. Well, and yet I would say my 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:20.159 politics are to the left of the Democratic Party. I'm 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.000 probably what in Europe would be called the democratic socialist. 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.640 But having said that, I think I was very fair 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:28.920 as a reporter. You know, some of poverty is about 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:31.800 personal responsibility, and some of it is not. Some of 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.200 it is systemic and a result of societal forces that 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:37.920 are profound, and you can't ignore either. And I think 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.280 the reporting in the corner and also some of the 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.320 implications of the wire. People I know who liked the 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.560 wire loved the wire. Well, it would, but that that 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.600 came very late in the run, and it came as 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.120 a result of things that I don't think we anticipated 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:56.040 what you're uh, sort of power watching through whole seasons 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.600 at a time, you know, once on demand and DVD 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:02.800 sets became those things. Yeah, we were still locked into 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:04.480 the Man and we hope they watched it on Sunday 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.240 nights or in the rewatches. When we first came on 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:09.879 the air, all that other, all the other platforms didn't exist, 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:12.919 so we didn't know that it would have a long tail. 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.760 And at the time, it was really about begging to 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.520 let us finish the narrative. How many seasons of The 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:25.480 Wire did you do? Uh? Five? How many episodes? Uh? Sixty? 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:28.960 What did you learn before? I mean, and even though 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.919 the collaboration with Tom in particular and with Barry was 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:34.119 a good one. Now this is your house and this 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.360 is your thing, the Wire is you and what did 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:39.840 you what was your personal touch you wanted to put out? 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:41.640 What were things you wanted to do that you weren't 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:45.119 able to do before? I thought Homicide was an exceptionally 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:49.439 good show, really well acted, and you know, well there 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:53.040 was a TV drama nonetheless, whereas most people agree that 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.040 The Wire was something that was much more bristled with authenticity. 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.280 The dialogue. Well, I mean, what the Wire had going 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:00.280 for it was there was nobody to appease. There were 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:02.240 no you know, there was nobody looking over your show. 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.679 I remember when we pulled we had good numbers. We 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:07.920 had okay numbers first season, we had even better number 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.040 second season, and then third season the numbers though that 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:13.600 was the first season the NFL started programming Sunday night football, 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:18.359 So thank you, thank you, and then and then and 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:21.880 then Desperate Housewives Chanel. So we were getting the crap 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:25.480 kicked out of us. And I remember calling Caroline, thinking, man, 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:28.320 they may cancel us. And I said, you know, what 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.240 was the number last Sunday? And she read it back 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:33.960 to me and I said, she said, I said, oh, man, 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:36.040 and she goes, oh, come on, it's a cute little number. 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:40.080 I don't want you thinking about numbers. That's astonishing. That's astonishing. 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:42.320 So what did you want to do differently than they? 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:45.720 What were some things you thought? I guess, yeah, that 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:47.280 was where we got in on this. And I think 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:49.280 the one thing I wanted to do is I looked 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:52.639 upon homicides being twenty two. It was like a collection 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:56.200 of short stories. You know, whenever I compare stuff to books, 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:58.240 people think I'm saying, oh, the wires as good as 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:00.280 Moby Dick or and I'm never saying that. I'm always 0:24:00.320 --> 0:24:04.280 just using books. As you know. Okay, homicide was dubliners. 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:07.600 You know, it's all connected, but it's it's James Joyce's dubliners. 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:11.440 These these delicately connected stories about a place and an 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:15.280 ethos and and and you know, twenty two separate stories, 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:17.679 and there's some storylines continue, but each story, you know, 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:20.760 there's a fresh theme for each. It was short story writing, 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:25.639 um in in a television sense, and I really wanted 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:27.760 to see what would happen if you sort of apply 0:24:27.960 --> 0:24:31.520 the logic of a novel and so, like you like, 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:34.800 stuff that happens in the first couple of chapters might 0:24:34.840 --> 0:24:37.680 stay relevant or or have the old style of TV, 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:39.880 which is what we don't have now, which is now 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:43.280 everybody wants a one off? Why are these police procedurals 0:24:43.280 --> 0:24:45.120 like n c I S and everything is so popular 0:24:45.119 --> 0:24:48.680 because you watch one episode and it's all, oh listen, yeah, 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:51.040 I was. I was. I'm not sure that it doesn't 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:53.880 present its own level of problems, but I have to say, 0:24:54.800 --> 0:24:57.080 you know, um, but it plays well into the binge 0:24:57.119 --> 0:24:58.879 viewing thing where if you're if you're gonna connect everything 0:24:58.920 --> 0:25:00.959 like a novel, and I can sit down on an 0:25:00.960 --> 0:25:03.040 afternoon and I can watch three hours of your show 0:25:04.240 --> 0:25:06.200 in retrospect. You have to have a certain number of 0:25:06.280 --> 0:25:08.639 viewers get to the end and start talking about it 0:25:08.680 --> 0:25:10.399 and say you gotta put them, you gotta go get 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:13.959 the box that you gotta go watch all these um 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:17.159 I look at these TV things as being a chance 0:25:17.200 --> 0:25:21.399 to have a discussion about something more than I wish 0:25:21.400 --> 0:25:23.960 these two characters would get together. I wish that, you know, 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:26.600 I wish that he wouldn't have gotten killed. You know, 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:29.800 I understand that the viewers experienced it that way, and 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:32.639 they're not wrong. But man, if all you're doing is 0:25:32.680 --> 0:25:35.800 being entertaining, then I've sort of, you know, I don't know. 0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:37.880 I don't know that I can sort of like look 0:25:38.080 --> 0:25:40.040 sort of the ghost of my father in the eye 0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:42.639 at night and say, you know that leaving newspapers was 0:25:43.320 --> 0:25:46.560 that I'm anything but a apostate. In fact, David Simon 0:25:46.600 --> 0:25:50.320 has become increasingly vocal in his opinions about our country's 0:25:50.400 --> 0:25:53.480 drug war. He said he hoped the wire would move 0:25:53.600 --> 0:25:57.359 quote from the entertainment pages to the op eds unquote. 0:25:57.880 --> 0:26:00.560 Last year, Simon appeared in the House I Live in, 0:26:00.880 --> 0:26:05.240 Eugene Jarecki's documentary about drug policy in the US. We 0:26:05.320 --> 0:26:08.920 Are the jailingest country on the planet beyond Saudi Arabia, 0:26:09.119 --> 0:26:13.080 North Korea or China. Nobody jels the population that there 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:16.680 ain't that we do, and yet drugs are purer than 0:26:16.720 --> 0:26:19.440 ever before, they're more available, there are younger and younger 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:21.359 kids willing to sell them. It'd be one thing it 0:26:21.400 --> 0:26:25.080 was draconian and it worked. But it's draconian and it 0:26:25.080 --> 0:26:28.000 does work, and it just leads to war. Talk about 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:32.159 Jarecki and how you met him, well, one of the 0:26:32.160 --> 0:26:35.080 things that the wire was clearly intended as is a 0:26:35.080 --> 0:26:37.880 critique of the drug war and drug probition. So I've 0:26:37.920 --> 0:26:40.080 been I spoke very bluntly about what I thought had 0:26:40.080 --> 0:26:43.040 gone wrong with the drug war, and at some point, 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:44.880 you know, when people would call me and they'd say 0:26:44.880 --> 0:26:46.560 the magic words, which is, you know, I mean I'm 0:26:46.600 --> 0:26:48.640 doing a story or I'm doing a documentary I'm doing 0:26:49.000 --> 0:26:51.320 Can I interview you about the drug war? I always 0:26:51.320 --> 0:26:53.359 say yes, And in fact, in all the public speaking 0:26:53.400 --> 0:26:55.920 I do, I always come back to one of my 0:26:55.960 --> 0:26:58.000 fundamental arguments, which is that if you're if you're an 0:26:58.000 --> 0:27:03.359 American citizen and you believe in any kind of democratic ideal, uh, 0:27:03.400 --> 0:27:06.240 you might want to seriously consider jury nullification. If you're 0:27:06.240 --> 0:27:08.399 picked on a jury for a non violent drug offense 0:27:09.240 --> 0:27:11.399 of being one of those Americans who are you know, 0:27:11.440 --> 0:27:15.040 being you know, refusing to put another American in jail 0:27:15.160 --> 0:27:18.840 over drug prohibition, you're not helping solve the problem, um, 0:27:18.840 --> 0:27:22.120 and you're leading to it InCAR sort of American problem. Yeah, 0:27:22.160 --> 0:27:24.280 you're feeding the problem since I don't think there's any 0:27:24.280 --> 0:27:26.520 political leadership that's going to get there in advance of 0:27:26.680 --> 0:27:29.280 actual popular sentiment. I think it's very much like, for example, 0:27:29.320 --> 0:27:31.159 gay rights. You know, I think by the time the 0:27:31.480 --> 0:27:35.760 politicians line up, change is already inevitable. And so I 0:27:35.760 --> 0:27:37.360 think the drug war is the same thing. And that's 0:27:37.359 --> 0:27:40.560 how prohibition finally fell on its ass, which was that 0:27:40.880 --> 0:27:43.280 they couldn't find twelve Americans to put a thirteenth in 0:27:43.359 --> 0:27:46.399 jail for making bathub jail. So I always take the 0:27:46.440 --> 0:27:49.760 gig and I always argue for jury nullification, and it's 0:27:49.760 --> 0:28:02.520 happening in places like Baltimore. In a minute, David Simon 0:28:02.600 --> 0:28:06.760 and I reminisce about our worst Hollywood pitch meetings involving 0:28:06.760 --> 0:28:11.000 Abercrombie and Fitch models and the origins of the Chesapeake Bay, 0:28:11.160 --> 0:28:13.840 and I realized once again, I'm in the wrong place. 0:28:14.440 --> 0:28:17.640 This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the thing, 0:28:25.440 --> 0:28:28.520 this is Alec Baldwin. The city of Baltimore is still 0:28:28.520 --> 0:28:31.520 a character in David Simon's life. He and his wife, 0:28:31.560 --> 0:28:34.880 writer Laura Lippman, lived there with their three year old daughter. 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:38.520 He also has a nineteen year old son, but Baltimore 0:28:38.600 --> 0:28:42.280 no longer takes center stage in his work. Simon produced 0:28:42.360 --> 0:28:46.200 Generation Kill, an HBO series about the invasion of Iraq, 0:28:46.520 --> 0:28:50.040 and is working on the fourth and final season of Tremay, 0:28:50.080 --> 0:28:53.400 also for HBO, a drama that follows a neighborhood in 0:28:53.400 --> 0:28:57.400 New Orleans as it struggles to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. 0:28:57.680 --> 0:29:00.560 Simon says working on Tremay made it and clearer to 0:29:00.640 --> 0:29:04.560 him what works and what doesn't in television. Two things 0:29:04.600 --> 0:29:07.600 are still the great currency. And even in this golden 0:29:07.640 --> 0:29:12.280 age of television sex and violence, if you have hot 0:29:12.320 --> 0:29:16.080 people hooking up, then you've got one. Then you're spending 0:29:16.080 --> 0:29:18.600 one currency. And if you have to turn to the 0:29:18.600 --> 0:29:21.320 next page, and if you if you're blowing ship up 0:29:21.320 --> 0:29:24.640 and killing people, then you've got something else going for you. Well. 0:29:24.680 --> 0:29:26.840 The wire Um was what it was about, and it 0:29:26.960 --> 0:29:29.440 was something we wanted to tell a story about, but 0:29:30.320 --> 0:29:32.400 clearly it was it had the currency of being a 0:29:32.400 --> 0:29:36.520 gangster story underneath. Uh, you know, at least on the surface, 0:29:36.560 --> 0:29:38.640 that's what it was. It was a crime story and 0:29:38.680 --> 0:29:41.560 the corner was that and Generation Kill had Marines blowing 0:29:41.560 --> 0:29:45.360 shut up. You know, there have been very few television 0:29:45.400 --> 0:29:49.000 shows that that embraced the idea of real human beings 0:29:49.000 --> 0:29:51.480 on a real human scale. It's really hard to do. 0:29:52.040 --> 0:29:55.360 It's hard to keep people interested. I'm not saying Tram 0:29:55.400 --> 0:29:57.560 may succeeded in any grand way, because I think it's 0:29:57.560 --> 0:30:01.080 been a very quiet show and it has I'm hoping 0:30:01.120 --> 0:30:03.480 it will stand for what it is and people will 0:30:03.480 --> 0:30:06.920 find it. But we were not interested in being hyperbolic 0:30:06.960 --> 0:30:09.520 with the show. You know, we weren't interested in tarding 0:30:09.520 --> 0:30:11.800 it up, and we weren't interested in the violence that 0:30:11.840 --> 0:30:13.760 there is in the show. Is actually corresponds to the 0:30:14.440 --> 0:30:16.640 dynamic of violence in the city of New Orleans and 0:30:16.640 --> 0:30:19.520 and not more. It's really a show about the role 0:30:19.560 --> 0:30:22.000 of culture in bringing a city back and what it 0:30:22.040 --> 0:30:24.800 means to be live in a pluralistic society that is 0:30:24.840 --> 0:30:27.840 capable of creating pluralistic culture, which is what what better 0:30:27.920 --> 0:30:31.720 form for it than American music, roots music, jazz, blues whatever. 0:30:33.280 --> 0:30:35.240 You know, how many shows can you name that that 0:30:35.280 --> 0:30:37.400 are really you know, I mean maybe like the first 0:30:37.440 --> 0:30:42.400 couple of seasons of Northern Exposure or these shows that 0:30:42.520 --> 0:30:45.560 basically are are our studies of place and time and character. 0:30:46.400 --> 0:30:49.120 And you know, there there are people who at the 0:30:49.160 --> 0:30:52.000 moment they realized that you're not gonna that you know, 0:30:52.040 --> 0:30:55.000 no vampire is going to show up or or nobody's 0:30:55.040 --> 0:30:59.200 gonna be fucking you know, it's like waiter check please, 0:30:59.280 --> 0:31:03.960 you know. So, um, I never want to do one 0:31:04.000 --> 0:31:07.480 more pitch that I have to do in life that 0:31:07.600 --> 0:31:12.440 there are those meetings. I mean, I'm I'm I'm in 0:31:12.440 --> 0:31:14.640 this little cocoon of HBO, and I hope they take 0:31:14.720 --> 0:31:17.720 something that I'm interested in and we'll say yeah, but 0:31:17.960 --> 0:31:19.320 you know, it's not even worth talking about. I mean, 0:31:19.320 --> 0:31:20.520 you don't know how many things I don't know. I 0:31:20.520 --> 0:31:21.840 don't want to pick your brains, but I'm just saying, 0:31:21.840 --> 0:31:24.040 do you have it's not worth you know, until something 0:31:24.040 --> 0:31:26.959 gets a green light, it's just really not worth. But 0:31:26.960 --> 0:31:29.960 but I can tell you that, um, I did do 0:31:30.040 --> 0:31:32.880 the round Robin of like, I have an idea that 0:31:32.920 --> 0:31:34.760 I really care about, and I went to like all 0:31:34.760 --> 0:31:38.520 the little meetings with the production development companies and and 0:31:39.200 --> 0:31:41.640 you know, I remember telling one that very delicate true 0:31:41.680 --> 0:31:43.840 story of Baltimore that I really wanted to do as 0:31:43.880 --> 0:31:47.360 a small movie. Uh. And I remember having one meeting 0:31:47.360 --> 0:31:49.480 after another. In the last last time I actually uttered 0:31:49.480 --> 0:31:51.200 anything about it was I was at this movie over 0:31:51.200 --> 0:31:55.080 in one of the lots and at this meeting, and uh, 0:31:55.360 --> 0:31:57.520 they listen really intently, and I'm like laying it out 0:31:57.560 --> 0:32:00.080 with the character instrick. And then then this happened, and 0:32:00.120 --> 0:32:02.400 I knew this guy, and when he died, and you know, 0:32:02.440 --> 0:32:05.400 I'm bleeding out, and you know that they listened patiently 0:32:05.400 --> 0:32:08.720 for twenty five minutes, after which the guy says to me, 0:32:09.680 --> 0:32:12.760 have you ever thought about where the Chesapeake Bay came 0:32:12.840 --> 0:32:16.960 from here from Baltimore? I said, the Chesapeake Bay? He said, yeah, 0:32:17.120 --> 0:32:19.680 you know where the Chesapeake Bay came from. I said, well, 0:32:19.720 --> 0:32:22.400 it's kind of this long estuary. I think it was 0:32:22.440 --> 0:32:24.640 sort of where they think there's probably a meteor strike, 0:32:24.760 --> 0:32:29.040 you know, it's that sort of that's right. And I 0:32:29.080 --> 0:32:32.440 remember looking at him going and that's the story a 0:32:32.480 --> 0:32:36.600 meteor strike, and he nodded firmly, and I left thinking, 0:32:37.600 --> 0:32:40.320 what an idiot. You know, I can't believe I just wasted, 0:32:40.400 --> 0:32:42.400 you know, half an hour and there on a freaking 0:32:42.440 --> 0:32:44.680 more on cancel all the meetings. I'm just going home 0:32:44.960 --> 0:32:46.880 like the other studios all had meteor movies and this 0:32:46.920 --> 0:32:50.080 guy and I realized once again I'm in the wrong place. 0:32:50.120 --> 0:32:52.680 People sitting at a crab shack saying the meteors coming 0:32:53.520 --> 0:32:57.360 and got their bibs on a very sentimental and romantic 0:32:58.800 --> 0:33:00.520 Remember I was in a meeting one two years ago. 0:33:00.960 --> 0:33:03.120 This is many years ago, the mid nineties, and I thought, oh, 0:33:03.160 --> 0:33:05.440 the movie business is such a drag. It's so painful, 0:33:05.520 --> 0:33:08.560 and I was really had this crisis of faith. And 0:33:08.600 --> 0:33:10.280 I go to this meeting with some pretty big people 0:33:10.280 --> 0:33:13.520 of Morner Brothers Television and I say to this guy, um, 0:33:13.960 --> 0:33:15.640 you guys, what do you want to do? I said, well, 0:33:15.720 --> 0:33:17.400 I have an idea for a television show. I said, 0:33:17.440 --> 0:33:19.760 I want to I want to refurbish the FBI, the 0:33:19.800 --> 0:33:21.600 old Quinn Martin. I want to do the FBI and 0:33:21.600 --> 0:33:23.440 I wanted to be and I want to put together 0:33:23.680 --> 0:33:26.440 the most elite team of actors I can think of 0:33:26.480 --> 0:33:30.240 the greatest actors that I admire today. It's me and 0:33:30.240 --> 0:33:34.040 Andre Brauer and Treat Williams. And I had this list 0:33:34.040 --> 0:33:36.560 of all these really tough guys that seemed like FBI guys. 0:33:36.560 --> 0:33:38.720 I could throw a punch and shoot a gun and 0:33:38.760 --> 0:33:41.080 they just don't even move. And as a joke, as 0:33:41.080 --> 0:33:44.720 a complete joke, I said, or I'm like the Michael 0:33:44.760 --> 0:33:47.000 Conrad character in Hill Street Blues. I come up and 0:33:47.000 --> 0:33:49.520 do the the shape up in the morning and it's 0:33:49.560 --> 0:33:54.240 me and like six Abercrombie and Fitch models are my staff. 0:33:54.920 --> 0:33:56.840 And I sit there and say be careful out there, 0:33:56.880 --> 0:33:59.800 and they go out and have like crimes, and you know, 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:04.280 every episode ends with every every episode ends with like 0:34:04.280 --> 0:34:07.720 like Team America and like two plastic looking gorgeous of 0:34:07.720 --> 0:34:09.799 people having sex. And the guy literally when he was 0:34:09.880 --> 0:34:11.879 now that show, I want to man, I mean, I'm 0:34:11.920 --> 0:34:13.799 not kidding. With an ounce of iron, he goes out 0:34:13.880 --> 0:34:15.440 that I want to make it. That's a great idea. 0:34:15.719 --> 0:34:18.360 Signed that one up. He let's do that FBI. So um. 0:34:18.440 --> 0:34:20.800 But one last thing, you have a child who's nineteen. 0:34:21.000 --> 0:34:25.120 What's he doing now? He's a college what's he Uh? 0:34:25.600 --> 0:34:27.759 He's a freshman, so I think he started, you know, 0:34:27.800 --> 0:34:32.240 because he got the bug. What bugs? No, he's actually 0:34:32.239 --> 0:34:34.440 a musician. He plays a jazz piano in a very 0:34:34.480 --> 0:34:36.160 high He hasn't even started yet and he wants to 0:34:36.160 --> 0:34:40.600 go back. Yeah, that's right, he um. So far that 0:34:40.640 --> 0:34:44.520 hasn't happened. Now the young daughter is a performer, or 0:34:44.520 --> 0:34:46.120 what's that like of you? Because I'm in the same boat. 0:34:46.160 --> 0:34:47.719 I got a seventeen and a half year old daughter 0:34:48.000 --> 0:34:51.560 and a baby coming. How's fatherhood for you? Well? Part two? Okay, 0:34:51.680 --> 0:34:53.400 let's be let's be honest. Do you feel it when 0:34:53.440 --> 0:34:55.439 you have to get up off the floor. It's easy 0:34:55.520 --> 0:34:57.080 to get down there and play with you when they're 0:34:57.120 --> 0:34:59.600 two years old, But you know, it's different than it 0:34:59.640 --> 0:35:01.359 was when I in my thirties and now I'm now 0:35:01.400 --> 0:35:03.759 in my early fifties, and when I get down on 0:35:03.800 --> 0:35:06.520 the floor, it's like get the Derek to get me 0:35:06.600 --> 0:35:08.080 up because you feel it in the knees all of 0:35:08.120 --> 0:35:10.200 a sudden. It's like, man, you you don't realize you 0:35:10.200 --> 0:35:13.200 can actually lay there and watch Mary Poppins over and 0:35:13.320 --> 0:35:18.400 over again. You're fine, right? My wife says that I 0:35:18.440 --> 0:35:23.160 think very very aptly that um, when when you're younger 0:35:23.360 --> 0:35:26.239 and you're parenting, you can go without sleep, you can 0:35:26.280 --> 0:35:30.160 be physically exhausted. You have work. Yeah, yeah, you have 0:35:30.200 --> 0:35:32.680 stamina you didn't know you have because you're young. When 0:35:32.680 --> 0:35:35.319 you're older, hopefully if things have gone a little bit 0:35:35.400 --> 0:35:38.399 right and you're an older parent, you've got enough money 0:35:38.440 --> 0:35:41.080 so that you can there's there's somebody there to help 0:35:41.080 --> 0:35:44.040 you with six or five or four hours of childcare 0:35:44.080 --> 0:35:47.440 a day. Because man, I definitely feel like I'm in 0:35:47.440 --> 0:35:50.360 my fifties so well as my friend Michael Lally, the 0:35:50.360 --> 0:35:52.640 poet said to me, who had a son later in 0:35:52.680 --> 0:35:54.759 his life, he said, it's great. I said, you had 0:35:54.760 --> 0:35:57.000 a kid. You were like right around my age. He 0:35:57.040 --> 0:35:59.640 said yes, I said that was it. Has it been 0:35:59.680 --> 0:36:01.480 every you hope it would be? He said, yes, it's great. 0:36:01.520 --> 0:36:05.000 It changed my life and reprioritize my life. I'm really 0:36:05.160 --> 0:36:06.920 I was so ready for fatherhood. I think I'm a 0:36:06.920 --> 0:36:09.719 good dad. I have a great relationship with my son. 0:36:10.040 --> 0:36:12.840 He said. There's only one thing I I remind people 0:36:12.840 --> 0:36:14.960 who are my age to keep in mind, and that is, 0:36:15.000 --> 0:36:16.759 when your kid goes to college, make sure that they 0:36:16.760 --> 0:36:19.520 attend a university where the commencement is held at a 0:36:19.520 --> 0:36:23.440 wheelchair accessible facility. That's the Oh nothing I remember, and 0:36:23.440 --> 0:36:26.440 I'm trying to keep that in mind. I fear the 0:36:26.520 --> 0:36:30.120 future in some respects. But on the other hand, you know, 0:36:30.400 --> 0:36:33.000 once once you go across the threshold, I know no 0:36:33.160 --> 0:36:35.640 giving it back, and I wouldn't if I could. Well, 0:36:35.680 --> 0:36:38.400 my last question for you is you because to me, 0:36:38.680 --> 0:36:42.320 the wire was about an authenticity which is often missing 0:36:42.520 --> 0:36:45.880 from television drama, which you know, they've got their formula, 0:36:45.960 --> 0:36:48.319 they've got their eatings and everything. They they've got their 0:36:48.360 --> 0:36:52.799 recipe that works for them, but yours speaks to makes 0:36:52.800 --> 0:36:55.319 me think you're ripe to make movies? Do you ever 0:36:55.320 --> 0:36:57.600 want to make movies? Well, the writer's not you know, 0:36:57.800 --> 0:37:00.400 get the writer off the set. You know. It's the 0:37:00.440 --> 0:37:03.920 reason they had that the writers in charge in television 0:37:04.239 --> 0:37:07.560 in drama anyway, is the need for continuity, the need 0:37:07.600 --> 0:37:09.960 for character continuity. You know, you can't fire the Son 0:37:10.000 --> 0:37:13.160 of a Bitch because episode eleven follows from episode ten, 0:37:13.920 --> 0:37:15.759 you know. And so I've had a few bites of 0:37:15.760 --> 0:37:18.279 the apple and I've written some things that you know, 0:37:18.400 --> 0:37:20.440 and I think, listen, it's also I'm not saying that 0:37:20.600 --> 0:37:22.040 what if they gave you the script, and you know 0:37:22.239 --> 0:37:24.840 we're in the age of the fully realized writer director. 0:37:25.160 --> 0:37:27.880 Everywhere I turn around, they say, you know, Evans going 0:37:27.920 --> 0:37:30.680 to be directing the script. I know what I'm not 0:37:30.719 --> 0:37:32.600 good at and and you don't want to I see 0:37:32.600 --> 0:37:35.200 shot compasses. I mean I would do a very pedestrian 0:37:35.320 --> 0:37:38.520 job of directing. I understand how to turn the camera around. 0:37:38.560 --> 0:37:40.759 I understand like what you need to leave with in 0:37:40.840 --> 0:37:44.000 order to have coverage. But the really creative and elegant 0:37:44.520 --> 0:37:46.799 directors I've worked with, they have a skill set that 0:37:46.840 --> 0:37:49.360 I don't have. It's very interesting for you, and I 0:37:49.440 --> 0:37:51.400 feel the same way. I really respect it when when 0:37:51.440 --> 0:37:53.600 they didn't care enough right when they right when they 0:37:53.719 --> 0:37:55.840 when they I understand what I'm watching a performance that 0:37:55.920 --> 0:37:58.880 isn't working because it's not getting the intention of the 0:37:58.920 --> 0:38:01.960 seen or because I don't leave in something either the 0:38:02.000 --> 0:38:04.560 background or the actor, or if something's not working, I 0:38:04.560 --> 0:38:09.360 know it's not working, but how to solve the problem. Sometimes, Um, 0:38:09.400 --> 0:38:11.880 you know, I can be diagnostic, I can't be prescriptive 0:38:11.880 --> 0:38:13.319 when it comes to a camera. I would watch some 0:38:13.320 --> 0:38:16.960 of the greatest cinematographers and I would say, truly that 0:38:17.120 --> 0:38:20.400 probably the most gratifying part of my film work was 0:38:20.480 --> 0:38:25.400 to be around these highly gifted, monastic men. I but 0:38:25.560 --> 0:38:27.239 the first time I showed up, you know, like one 0:38:27.239 --> 0:38:30.239 minute I was a rewrite man and crime reporter for 0:38:30.280 --> 0:38:32.279 the One More Sun, and the next moment I was 0:38:32.320 --> 0:38:34.560 working for this show homicide and my paychecks were coming 0:38:34.600 --> 0:38:36.920 from NBC. And I go to set for the first 0:38:37.000 --> 0:38:40.759 day and I'm looking around and I don't even know 0:38:40.840 --> 0:38:43.560 what stupid question to ask. And it was like three 0:38:43.560 --> 0:38:45.719 weeks into going to set and seeing them do it 0:38:45.760 --> 0:38:47.880 that at some point I said, you know, what's what's 0:38:47.920 --> 0:38:50.319 boots over there? You know, the guy's name is Booth? 0:38:50.320 --> 0:38:53.400 I said, what's he doing turning that knob next to 0:38:53.400 --> 0:38:57.680 the camera, and H Henry Broumel actually remember, turned to 0:38:57.680 --> 0:39:01.120 me and said, he's focusing the camera. I looked at 0:39:01.200 --> 0:39:03.640 him like, I said, you mean the guy who focuses 0:39:03.680 --> 0:39:05.799 the camera, isn't the guy looking through the camera. How 0:39:05.840 --> 0:39:09.279 does that work? Like you know, that can't possibly work. 0:39:09.320 --> 0:39:12.520 People are unprepared for how collaborative film, right exactly, and 0:39:12.560 --> 0:39:15.600 so respect the depths, you know, and I do, which 0:39:15.640 --> 0:39:18.799 is to say, I kind of want to have the 0:39:18.840 --> 0:39:20.480 story turn out. I don't want to put my name 0:39:20.520 --> 0:39:22.279 on something where the story, you know, you went in 0:39:22.320 --> 0:39:23.879 with the script you believed in and you came out 0:39:23.920 --> 0:39:27.680 with dreck. But at the same time, so I kind 0:39:27.680 --> 0:39:30.200 of don't want to relinquish control, but I have to 0:39:30.239 --> 0:39:33.839 acknowledge features is very difficult doing the television series doing 0:39:33.880 --> 0:39:36.319 thirty Rock, where we shot, you know, a hundred and 0:39:36.320 --> 0:39:39.080 twenty something episodes. We were there hour after hour after hour. 0:39:39.600 --> 0:39:42.160 My version of so Long as you Know was they'd 0:39:42.160 --> 0:39:43.879 say to me, do you mind if we move the camera. 0:39:43.920 --> 0:39:46.279 We're going to move the camera over here, so when 0:39:46.320 --> 0:39:48.200 you turn, we need you to lean on your left leg. 0:39:48.360 --> 0:39:49.839 And I would look at them. I mean, I did 0:39:49.840 --> 0:39:51.719 it a thousand times. I say, I really don't care 0:39:51.760 --> 0:39:55.680 what you do because change in this moment. I'm gonna 0:39:55.680 --> 0:39:58.040 stand here and say this line. Oh you want me 0:39:58.040 --> 0:40:00.120 to lean on my left leg? Great, that's my why 0:40:00.120 --> 0:40:02.440 I really don't care. I don't know. I don't have 0:40:02.520 --> 0:40:04.319 anybody hits the market. I have to admit it. But 0:40:04.400 --> 0:40:06.000 you know I watched that show. I have to say 0:40:06.520 --> 0:40:08.600 I am a fan of that show. My wife turned 0:40:08.600 --> 0:40:11.360 me onto it years ago, and it's just the reason 0:40:11.440 --> 0:40:14.160 that that show is so unique in terms of comedy 0:40:14.280 --> 0:40:16.279 is it It does something that you haven't seen since, 0:40:16.360 --> 0:40:20.160 like the Howard Hawks comedies. And it's funny. But it's 0:40:20.200 --> 0:40:22.359 operating at a speed that I would call his girl 0:40:22.400 --> 0:40:26.439 Friday speed the lines, rapid fire, don't wait, yeah, don't wait, 0:40:26.680 --> 0:40:28.560 don't wait. It's like, you know, we're not waiting for 0:40:28.600 --> 0:40:30.600 the laughter. We all kind of huddled up at one point. 0:40:30.640 --> 0:40:32.719 I mean it was unspoken, but we said, we really 0:40:32.719 --> 0:40:35.680 have to play this fast, right, and it's slow down 0:40:35.680 --> 0:40:38.600 it it's it has the same level of of rapid 0:40:38.600 --> 0:40:41.440 fire banter as any as the best sort of carry 0:40:41.480 --> 0:40:44.960 Grant Rosalind Russell type. You know, the speed at which 0:40:45.120 --> 0:40:48.560 team is good. Well, it really works and it's unique. 0:40:49.280 --> 0:40:52.480 There's so much that is is so much more careful 0:40:52.480 --> 0:40:56.120 and languid, and so is to my taste, less funny. 0:40:56.560 --> 0:40:58.160 Just I like it to be fair. I look forward 0:40:58.200 --> 0:41:00.400 to seeing what you do next. I can't wait. Let 0:41:00.480 --> 0:41:01.960 me think that movie thing I think you can make, 0:41:02.280 --> 0:41:03.840 you know, listen, may be back to you about that. 0:41:04.120 --> 0:41:07.480 I got a proposal for about Yeah. I got an idea. 0:41:07.520 --> 0:41:10.000 Tell your son to go to film school and the 0:41:10.040 --> 0:41:12.360 director is your son, and he wouldn't dare touch your script. 0:41:12.840 --> 0:41:16.480 Believe me that he'd be out of the will in 0:41:16.520 --> 0:41:19.759 two years. I mean, that's a that's a recipe for 0:41:20.080 --> 0:41:22.239 At some point I was working on my wife is 0:41:22.239 --> 0:41:25.880 a novelist. And at some point George Paulcanos, the guy 0:41:25.920 --> 0:41:28.319 I worked with routinely, We're looking at a project and 0:41:28.320 --> 0:41:30.520 he says, you know, we really need a good, strong 0:41:30.600 --> 0:41:32.520 female writer. And I said, you know, why don't you 0:41:32.520 --> 0:41:34.840 ask Laura to come into the writer's room on this? 0:41:35.600 --> 0:41:37.160 And I said, you know, why don't you just call 0:41:37.239 --> 0:41:38.880 the lawyer now you want? You know, I'm gonna be 0:41:38.920 --> 0:41:41.120 in the writer's room. You know, George, you know how 0:41:41.200 --> 0:41:43.680 badly we treat each other. You know, can you imagine 0:41:43.960 --> 0:41:47.120 trying to do this with somebody? You know? And uh, 0:41:47.320 --> 0:41:51.160 he's been persistent, but like that, you know, there has 0:41:51.200 --> 0:41:54.279 to be something. There has to be some you know, 0:41:54.640 --> 0:41:57.440 every child should go off and find their own joy 0:41:57.560 --> 0:42:00.560 and they should not be burdened by and and you 0:42:00.560 --> 0:42:04.200 know he can he can play felonious monk to death. 0:42:04.280 --> 0:42:07.080 And he's nineteen. I said that I can't figure out how, 0:42:07.239 --> 0:42:09.959 how what how he's doing his quarters seventeen and a half. 0:42:09.960 --> 0:42:11.600 And and you try to explain this to them, and 0:42:11.600 --> 0:42:13.839 it's all right. I say, I say, you're gonna turn 0:42:13.880 --> 0:42:15.880 around at my age and you're gonna be realized that 0:42:15.960 --> 0:42:19.719 you postponed doing certain things to be happy. And I 0:42:19.760 --> 0:42:22.480 say to my daughter, now, I said, you don't postpone 0:42:23.200 --> 0:42:26.320 that journey or that consideration of what makes you happy, 0:42:27.040 --> 0:42:29.239 because because I'm doing this, and it doesn't always make 0:42:29.239 --> 0:42:31.120 me happy. When I'm doing in this business, it's a job. 0:42:31.400 --> 0:42:34.440 Sometimes it does well. The trick in this business is 0:42:34.480 --> 0:42:38.000 knowing when you're no longer at least if you're if 0:42:38.040 --> 0:42:40.920 you're operating as a writer. This may not be, but 0:42:40.960 --> 0:42:42.600 I think it's probably true for an actor too, But 0:42:43.239 --> 0:42:47.200 when you're no longer doing work, that is that the 0:42:47.480 --> 0:42:50.719 journey itself is interesting. And when you're doing work, that is, 0:42:51.360 --> 0:42:53.800 you're saying either the same thing that you've already said before, 0:42:54.320 --> 0:42:59.720 or you're saying the same thing to no purpose, like well, okay, 0:42:59.719 --> 0:43:01.360 this is this is what they're paying me for today. 0:43:01.360 --> 0:43:03.839 It's like that's the point at which you know it's 0:43:03.840 --> 0:43:06.239 time to do something else. And it's like the one 0:43:06.239 --> 0:43:09.160 thing that David Mills told me and he died. You know, 0:43:09.480 --> 0:43:11.719 a guy who I wrote my first script with came 0:43:11.760 --> 0:43:13.680 with me on Trema was producer and Tremay and he 0:43:13.840 --> 0:43:18.200 he died of of an aneurism before the show came out. 0:43:18.200 --> 0:43:21.319 It was on set collapsed. I mean, I missed him 0:43:21.360 --> 0:43:24.160 to this day. But he's he told me something. He said, 0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:28.120 he goes the only reason that you're he he went 0:43:28.120 --> 0:43:30.600 out to l a full bour and tried to get 0:43:30.600 --> 0:43:33.120 a network show development deals and he went through the 0:43:33.160 --> 0:43:36.960 whole route. He's the amazing thing is and he told me, 0:43:37.000 --> 0:43:40.879 don't lose this is you are okay if they come 0:43:40.880 --> 0:43:42.239 to you and say that, you know, it's all been 0:43:42.360 --> 0:43:45.719 very nice, but nobody watches your ship and and we're 0:43:46.560 --> 0:43:48.759 we're gonna go somewhere else, and you know, we're done 0:43:48.760 --> 0:43:51.759 with you. And it's like at no point, like you know, 0:43:51.800 --> 0:43:53.760 if somebody has a hit with a courtroom show, everyone's 0:43:53.800 --> 0:43:55.680 running around trying to figure out how to do a 0:43:55.719 --> 0:43:58.400 courtroom show. If everyone is a medical show, because you're 0:43:58.440 --> 0:44:00.760 the only guy in this freaking end street, that basically 0:44:00.840 --> 0:44:02.680 is okay if they throw you off, if the plate 0:44:02.760 --> 0:44:06.279 spins and you fall off the plate. And I've always 0:44:06.320 --> 0:44:07.680 had that in the back of my pockets, like the 0:44:07.680 --> 0:44:09.760 wandering Jew of you know, I got a bag packed 0:44:10.320 --> 0:44:12.440 when when there's no longer a place for what I'm 0:44:12.480 --> 0:44:16.200 trying to do. It's okay. It sounds like in one 0:44:16.280 --> 0:44:20.360 sense that a show business career. And I mean, although 0:44:20.400 --> 0:44:23.520 the shows were not you know, you're not, uh, these 0:44:23.520 --> 0:44:28.120 television shows haven't been these juggernauts, let's say, like would 0:44:28.320 --> 0:44:29.759 not by any means no, but but but no but 0:44:29.920 --> 0:44:31.920 but that aside, I mean, but I'm saying that doesn't matter. 0:44:32.080 --> 0:44:34.279 I mean that they've been very well regarded and very 0:44:34.320 --> 0:44:37.320 well respected people to people, but I love the wire. 0:44:37.400 --> 0:44:39.440 It's like hashish to them. I mean, they love this 0:44:39.520 --> 0:44:42.320 thing and been for you. You have this. It seems 0:44:42.400 --> 0:44:45.120 very healthy attitude because this was all an accident anyway, right, 0:44:45.239 --> 0:44:47.239 I feel like I'm on borrowed time since the moment 0:44:47.280 --> 0:44:48.759 I got into this industry. This is not where you 0:44:48.800 --> 0:44:51.200 were sailing your ship to beginning, And I feel I 0:44:51.200 --> 0:44:53.080 feel the guilt of an apostate who has had a 0:44:53.120 --> 0:44:56.480 marvelous run, you know, since he left the religion. So 0:44:57.080 --> 0:45:00.080 I'm it's okay. If if HBO were to come to 0:45:00.160 --> 0:45:03.160 me and say we're never making another hour with you, 0:45:03.840 --> 0:45:07.560 and you know, and you know, good luck and God bless, 0:45:08.040 --> 0:45:09.879 I'd still cross the street to give him a hug 0:45:09.920 --> 0:45:11.799 if I saw him coming the other way three years later, 0:45:11.840 --> 0:45:13.680 and if I never worked. It's like this has been 0:45:14.560 --> 0:45:17.520 something that was totally unexpected, that it happened at a 0:45:17.520 --> 0:45:20.640 time where newspapers were collapsing all around me. It was 0:45:20.680 --> 0:45:23.239 just fortuitous, you know, because there was a part of 0:45:23.239 --> 0:45:25.960 me that was really torn when this started happening. To 0:45:26.080 --> 0:45:30.840 this day, I missed reporting. So it's okay whatever happens. 0:45:31.360 --> 0:45:33.160 There are a lot of people in this industry that, 0:45:33.800 --> 0:45:37.880 you know, staying on top at any cost, and and 0:45:37.920 --> 0:45:40.560 they'll find themselves telling stories they don't actually care about 0:45:40.960 --> 0:45:43.960 because that's the story that somebody else wants. And that, 0:45:44.040 --> 0:45:47.239 to me is like a journey to hell. So and 0:45:47.280 --> 0:45:49.440 I can see how it happens. And let's face it, 0:45:49.480 --> 0:45:51.400 you know, there's a lot of money in this industry, 0:45:51.800 --> 0:45:55.360 so it can happen. But man, the only thing healthy 0:45:55.960 --> 0:45:57.800 he said, He said, you've got a lot of unhealthy 0:45:57.800 --> 0:46:00.600 ship in your head, Dave. But the one thing said was, 0:46:00.960 --> 0:46:10.240 you know, is that you're okay if it ends. M h. 0:46:10.800 --> 0:46:14.319 It's highly unlikely that end is coming anytime soon. But 0:46:14.440 --> 0:46:18.080 until David Simon creates his next series, fans will have 0:46:18.160 --> 0:46:24.640 to settle for rescreening episodes from their boxed sets. This 0:46:24.719 --> 0:46:27.680 is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.