Usually the director rode shotgun next to the driver. Because there were two of us, we caused momentary discomfort in the pecking order.
In Wire parlance, a husband and wife directing team would be considered one of those things you don’t see everyday. After five seasons on the air, it was the first time the show had hired a team. And it was the first time we had directed television.
Scott and I developed our directing chops together on two award-winning short films and a feature documentary that we had produced.
The first, Louisville, starred Andre Braugher from Homicide: Life on the Street, where I got my start right out of film school. The second was Woman Hollering Creek, with Larry Gilliard, Jr., who played D’Angelo Barksdale in The Wire. I had written for The Wire in the first three seasons.
My first The Wire script was “The Hunt,” directed by Steve Shill, where the search was on for Greggs’s shooter and D’Angelo had to drive Wee-Bey to Philly.
The second season as a staff writer was one of the most rewarding. Interviewing the longshoremen and researching the cargo terminals introduced me to a side of Baltimore that I had not seen before.
My episode “Hard Cases,” directed by Elodie Keene, reflected the interconnectedness of two seemingly divergent worlds: one where Nick and Ziggy were pulled in deeper into the drug trade along the waterfront business, and one in which D’Angelo and his uncle Avon part ways while serving prison time together.
“Back Burners,” directed by Tim Van Patten in Season Three, had Western District Major Howard “Bunny” Colvin come to terms with McNulty and his fellow detectives about the pros and cons of legalizing drugs in “Hamsterdam” while Avon returns to the streets to reclaim his crown from Marlo.
Three very talented, veteran directors delivered on my episodes. It was a dream come true for Scott and me to join them.
Picking a location is where we could put our stamp on the show, a collaborative process with the location team, the production designer, and the producers.
It allowed us to highlight our knowledge of the city (Scott is a Baltimore native), and visually add to the storytelling. At the Sun plant in Port Covington, which would be operating as usual during filming, we were being given access to areas where safety was a consideration for cast and crew.
During the tech scout, we figured out exactly where Alma would cross the plant to capture the majesty of the huge printing presses and how raw newsprint would become a newspaper before rolling off the presses at ground level.
For Alma’s apartment, the writers and producers had been very specific about the neighborhood where she should live – Charles Village, a somewhat upscale, hip area with grand rowhouses, a college vibe from Johns Hopkins University, and a local business strip that included Video Americain, Eddie’s Market and Donna’s Café.
An area like this was not seen very often on The Wire. Mostly white and solidly middle-class, it was a place where college kids could get high safely if they didn’t get too out of hand.
Charley Armstrong had a number of apartments to show us, but we would select a less upscale one that would speak to the bank account of a young reporter just starting out. We walked from North Charles Street toward Hopkins and chose to shoot the exteriors on the business strip.
Eddie’s Market would grant us permission to film inside the grocery store where McNulty would pick up red ribbon for his homeless “victims” that made up his fraudulent case about a serial killer.
The bar where Lester Freamon would meet Gus Haynes was a very specific place David Simon had in mind when Collins wrote the scene. The story behind the specific request came from the days when writer/producer Ed Burns was a cop. Simon and Burns would go to Maceo’s Lounge and talk to residents while they were researching The Corner.
Maceo’s Lounge was a corner institution on Monroe Street in West Baltimore and it was not far from the Retreat Street stables where Scott and I filmed our documentary about “a-rabbers,” the vendors who sold fruit and vegetables from horse-drawn carts.
The bar was everything the writers had described it to be with as much character and heart as the drug-ravaged neighborhood in its midst.
It was predominately African-American, poor, the rowhouses not maintained especially well. We felt distinctly that we were some of the few outsiders to come in and check the pulse of this area. And we were definitely being watched.
Yet despite the fact that the producers had suggested Maceo’s, it was not close to any other area we were filming. The bar owners, however, loved The Wire and gave permission to use their upstairs offices to shoot other scenes, our trip to the Westside justified.
Over the course of several days, we would continue this process of seeing all of the different sides of Baltimore and deciding, along with the tech team and the producers, what would best fit the show and shooting schedule.
And then production began.
Our big day came on the soundstage for the set ofthe Baltimore Sunnewsroom. We had several cameras on hand to pick up reaction shots of the people gathered to hear Executive Editor Whiting’s speech. In the crowd were several real reporters from David Simon’s reporting days who were making cameos.
We moved the camera in on these faces, which had seen the impact the buyouts and budget cuts had already made on their industry. Their presence told us that they supported what was being said about the fate of the newspapers.
Clark Johnson, as City Editor Gus Haynes, was featured in the scene. Through Haynes, we could bring some humor to the seriousness of the moment. He added much more, however.
Season Five was about coming full circle, and Clark’s appearance in the final episodes represented closure. He had directed the first episode of The Wire, the Season One pilot, and his choices in 2002, from casting to camera lens selection, were still present.
Clark had also been an advocate for Scott and me and our personal film projects over the years. His appearance on the set captured the journey The Wire had been on since the beginning, how far we had all come, how it would soon come to an end. It was a bittersweet moment on so many different levels.
Along the way, the show had lost a great producer, Robert Colesberry, and homage was paid to him at the beginning of our episode.
We revisited a scene from the pilot where, in the role of Detective Ray Cole, Colesberry tilted back in his chair and told McNulty, “Type quieter, asshole.”
We recreated the original shot with Donald Worden, a retired Baltimore City homicide detective, who had been a good friend and source to Simon during his reporting days.
In each episode of the final season, similar “do-overs” would speak to the idea that the players may change, but some things remain the same.
Back on the streets of Baltimore, at an appliance store on the Eastside, we rehearsed a scene where Prop Joe, Marlo, Snoop, and Cheese discuss the bounty on Omar and his people.
Felicia Pearson, who played Snoop, asked us about the term “Memaw” – for grandmother – spoken in the scene.
Since I had used it in one of my scripts, I spoke to her about the word and was struck by this moment: two African-American women, from totally different backgrounds, standing on the set of a major American television show, doing something no one could have expected for either of us.
I came from a family of social workers and schoolteachers and accountants. Since pursuing a career in writing had been discouraged, I couldn’t imagine directing as a possibility. Though raised by people who loved her, Snoop had grown up in the thick of the ’hood and had been to prison.
Yet here we were, defying all socio-economic odds. Because of a TV program.
Joy Kecken and Scott Kecken
episode fifty-four
“TRANSITIONS”
“Buyer’s market out there.”
– TEMPLETON
Directed by Dan Attias
Story by David Simon & Ed Burns; teleplay by Ed Burns
Director Dan Attias, who directed four Wire episodes beginning w
ith Season Two, won a Directors Guild of America award for this one.
In it, Michael and his crew are relaxing on their corner as cops Colicchio and “Truck” Carrick watch from theirs. Kenard shows up, ostentatiously hiding a paper bag under a set of steps.
When the officers go to make the arrest, they find the bag filled with dog shit. Losing his temper with a motorist stuck in the ensuing traffic jam, Colicchio pummels the man – a school teacher en route to work – to the cheers of the corner boys. Sergeant Carver will later write up Colicchio for his behavior, accepting whatever enmity it brings.
Face-to-face, Colonel Daniels tells Commissioner Burrell that he has not been gunning for his job which, if offered to him, he will decline. Burrell simply stares at him without comment. While Alma works a rumor that Burrell may be fired that day, Templeton works on his portfolio in advance of an interview at the Washington Post.
(At the Post, young Scottie will be told that his prose blushes purple and he needs more experience before he can step up.)
McNulty, needing bodies for his scheme, hears that a lot of homeless men are dying in the Southern District and, via Freamon, tries to find out who works the midnight shift there.
At the Southern, Freamon finds his old patrol partner – Officer Oscar Requer, named for the real-life “Bunk” – and asks him to give a holler when the next homeless body with little or no decomposition turns up. Requer agrees.
(In his own legit cases, Bunk Moreland is still having trouble getting lab work back – a good year later – on the 22 bodies found in the vacant houses.)
As Vondas compliments the pristine currency that Marlo has brought back to him, he also makes it clear that he doesn’t want to be part of sloppy street business. Marlo will not be deterred. Vondas says that a future relationship, if there is one, will be viewed as an “insurance policy” against possible disruptions to business.
In the detail office, Freamon points out the fruit on a vine Sydnor deemed barren. Sydnor is discouraged to find out that $80,000 from Clay Davis’s personal bank account went to repay a loan to the senator’s motherin-law.
But Lester calls it a “head shot,” and a lucky break, later explaining to prosecutor Rhonda Pearlman that the $80k repayment falsifies Davis’s loan application by proving a gift was actually a loan.
Such fraud could be punished under federal law with 30 years in jail and a million-dollar fine. But State’s Attorney Rupert Bond continues to balk at turning the case over to the Feds; he’d rather keep it in his own backyard – four counts against Davis of stealing from his own charities – with the possibility of ten years on each count.
When it’s Davis’s turn to testify in front of the grand jury, he arrives as a hail-fellow-well-met until Pearlman begins connecting the dots of his money trail. He then recoils and takes the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination.
Reviewing the list of favors that Carcetti owes the city’s black ministers as a ramp up to firing Burrell, the mayor and his team decide that Rawls will serve as acting commissioner and a half-year later, Daniels will take over. Fighting back, Burrell tries to give Nerese Campbell some dirt on Daniels that goes way back, but is told that he cooked his own goose by turning in false crime statistics.
She does, however, offer him an out: go quietly and we’ll find you a well-paying job in D.C. And takes the old files on Daniels with her.
With his lover Dante, Omar returns from Puerto Rico – where he wore Jimmy Buffet shirts and gave away candy to little kids – to get to the bottom of Butchie’s death. It’s not long before he finds out that Marlo was behind it. The same game that ended in Stringer Bell’s death is on again.
Marlo also returns from the islands, with a fat check from his off-shore account. After a meeting of the Co-op, he asks Prop Joe for some advice on what to do with it.
When Rawls visits Burrell on Erv’s last day, the outgoing commissioner tells his successor that it’s a can’t-win job; the City Hall rewrites its agenda from one day to the next and that won’t change, regardless of who is charged with running the department.
Under the lash of “doing more with less,” the City Desk tries to figure out how best to report Burrell’s departure at the same time Clay Davis is leaving the Grand Jury inquiry, the latter missed by the paper and watched on TV.
Wanting to cut corners on a case that isn’t real – to more or less just write reports out of thin air – McNulty is forced by Freamon to work a village of homeless people beneath the Hanover Street Bridge on the southside of town.
Too much at stake here, Freamon says, we have to approach it as we would a real case.
Finding a good corpse for their scheme, the partners in crime begin prepping the dead man to look like a murder victim as Freamon tells McNulty that serial killers begin crudely before moving toward more sophisticated work.
McNulty uses a set of false teeth, prepared by Freamon, to leave bite marks on the corpse and the pair debate over which one of them is sicker than the other.
Omar jacks up Slim Charles and, with a gun to his head, wants to know where he can find Prop Joe. Swearing that Joe had nothing to do with Butchie’s murder, Charles begs Omar to “finish it.” Instead, Omar releases him.
Prop Joe continues to school Marlo, introducing him to the well-known defense attorney for drug dealers, Maurice Levy. In Levy’s office, Marlo recognizes Herc and asks if he ever found his camera. Herc, not amused, tells Stanfield that it cost him his job.
When Marlo and Levy sit down to talk in private, Herc and Prop Joe gossip about Burrell. Joe says he went to Dunbar with Burrell and that he was “stone stupid.”
Omar, in the company of a colleague named Donnie (the real life stickup artist and ex-con Donnie Andrews whose street career informed Omar’s character), watches Marlo’s lair. The plan is to begin picking off Stanfield employees, beginning with Monk.
At his rowhouse in the Johnston Square neighborhood – not far from Green Mount Cemetery where the founder of the Baltimore Sun, Arunah S. Abell (1806–1888), is buried – Prop Joe packs a bag while his nephew Cheese stands by. Joe has decided to leave town now that Omar is back.
Cheese leaves and Marlo enters. Joe has been betrayed by his nephew and The Greek, who has given Marlo the okay to do what he has to.
“I treated you like a son,” said Joe.
“Wasn’t meant to play the son,” Marlo answers, urging Joe to relax and close his eyes, it won’t hurt none at all.
PROPOSITION JOE: SHOW-TUNE ENTHUSIAST
“Comedy is harder than drama … lucille Ball, John ritter, Bill Cosby, and richard Pryor … they’re my heroes …”
– ROBERT F. CHEW
Robert Chew is not a murderous drug lord, but, boy, oh boy, does he play an especially insidious one on TV.
“It was a major surprise when I got the part because that’s not my lifestyle,” said Chew, whose demeanor as Proposition Joe Stewart is subtle yet unambiguous: I won’t have you killed if I don’t have to … but if I have to, I will.
Not exactly Chew’s beloved I Love Lucy, no matter how mad Ricky Ricardo got.
“That’s the type of acting I really love, when the acting was right in your face,” said Chew, a 1978 graduate of Baltimore’s Patterson High School. “I like shows where everything is bigger than life, where if someone cries, tears are shed.”
One glimpse of Chew’s character as the man behind virtually all dope sold on the Eastside of Baltimore – “buy for a dollar and sell for two” – and you know that regardless of what Robert F. thinks, Prop Joe don’t play that.
Preferring peace over mayhem, Joe first shows his moon face at the annual Eastside-Westside playground basketball game between drug factions from opposite sides of Crabtown.
He immediately persuades Avon Barksdale to double their wager on the game, sends in a ringer at the buzzer and collects when the Eastsiders win.
When Nicky Sobotka meets Joe for the first time to plead his cousin Ziggy’s case over a drug debt in Season Tw
o, Joe calmly lets the white boy from the docks know that if he weren’t in the company of some heavy hitters associated with The Greek, he would be a “cadaverous motherfucker.”
Proposition Joe Stewart is loosely based on a West Baltimore dealer of the same moniker but with the surname Johnson. Chew’s portrayal is low-key, deadly serious, and at the same time, turn-of-the-phrase poetic.
Counseling Stringer Bell to keep a low-profile, he says: “Wanna know what kills more police than bullets and liquor?
“Boredom. They just can’t handle that shit. You keep it boring, String. You keep it dead fucking boring.”
Chew said he never met the real Prop Joe – shot to death in 1984 in a Northwest Baltimore after-hours club on Reisterstown Road – “but I hear he was charming, intelligent, and handsome, a real stylish player who liked the finer things.
“I didn’t research it any more than that.”
•
The great-grandson of a man who found his way to the States from Korea, Chew grew up in the heart of East Baltimore near Johns Hopkins Hospital, around the corner of Broadway and Eager Street. The house where he spent much of his childhood was torn down in the hospital’s never-ceasing expansion and the nearby projects that he also called home for a while are gone as well.
Chew’s father has been in prison on a manslaughter conviction since Robert was a kid. His mother was a social worker.
High school gave Robert a chance to sing, dance, and act in student theater as well as playing JV football and working on the school paper. In addition to watching Gilligan’s Island in reruns and listening to the Captain & Tennille – “I liked anything that was over-the-top,” said Chew – it kept young Robert out of trouble.
The Wire Page 37