From: the.wise.one@abel.co.uk   
      
   ...BILL MOYERS: Are you, as someone said recently, "the angriest man in   
   television"?   
      
   DAVID SIMON: Yes, I saw that. It doesn't really mean much. The second   
   angriest guy is, you know, by a kidney shaped pool in L.A. screaming   
   into his cell phone, because his DVD points aren't enough. I mean, what   
   is the second angriest man in television, American television? But I   
   don't mind being called that. I just don't think it means anything. How   
   can you not have lived through the last ten years in American culture?   
   In everything from-- how can you not look at what happened on Wall   
   Street and that's still happening? At this gamesmanship that was the   
   mortgage bubble, you know? That was just selling-- again, selling crap   
   and calling it gold.   
      
   How can you not look at that? Or watch a city school system suffer for   
   20, 25-- how can you-- isn't anger the appropriate response? What is the   
   appropriate response? Ennui? You know? Alienation? You know, buying into   
   the notion that the "Great Man" theory of history? That if we only elect   
   the right guy? This stuff is systemic. This is how an empire is eaten   
   from within.   
      
   BILL MOYERS: But I don't think these good individuals you talk about,   
   the individual who stands up and says, "I'm not going to lie anymore." I   
   don't think individuals know how to crack that system. How to change   
   that system. Because by you-- as you say, the system is self-perpetuating.   
      
   DAVID SIMON: And moneyed. And beautifully moneyed. I mean, you know--   
   and I don't think we can. And so, I don't think it's going to get   
   better. Listen, I don't like talking this way. I would be happy to find   
   out that THE WIRE was hyperbolic and ridiculous. And that the American   
   Century is still to come. I don't believe it, but I'd love to believe   
   it, because I live in Baltimore and I'm an American. You know? And I   
   want to sit in my house and see the game on Saturday along with   
   everybody else. But I just don't see a lot of evidence of it.   
      
   BILL MOYERS: Do you really believe, as you said to those students at   
   Loyola, that we're not going to make it?   
      
   DAVID SIMON: We're not going to make it as a first rate empire. And I'm   
   not sure that that's a bad thing in the end. I mean, you know, empires   
   end. And that doesn't mean cultures end completely and it doesn't mean   
   that even nation states... You know, I mean, if you looked at Britain in   
   1952 and what was being presided over by Anthony Eden and those guys.   
   You'd have said, "Man, you know, what's going to be left?" But, you   
   know, Britain's still there. And they've come to terms with what they   
   can and can't do.   
      
   Americans are still sort of in an age of delusion, I think. And a lot of   
   our foreign policy represents that. And a lot of our-- you know, this   
   notion that the markets were always going to go up. And that once we had   
   invested stocks to death, we could create some new equity, out of magic.   
   Out of nothing. Out of-   
      
   BILL MOYERS: Derivatives and all-   
      
   DAVID SIMON: Out of bad mortgages. No, look, it's a new stock. Bring   
   more money. I mean, the insanity of that is-- it was fun being compared   
   to Gibbon, I'll take that. But-   
      
   BILL MOYERS: I must say you are a reporter, not a prophet. But sometimes-   
      
   DAVID SIMON: Exactly.   
      
   BILL MOYERS: -what happens emerges from the way the facts were reported.   
   That you need to know what reality is, as best you can, before you can   
   choose which way to go. Who do you thinks going to now be telling us   
   what the facts are that we can agree on? Is it going to be television?   
   Is it going to be fiction? Is it going to be journalism?   
      
   DAVID SIMON: I don't know. I mean, I think ultimately a little of it's   
   going to come from everywhere. You know, there have been books of--   
   there have been novels that I read, that I thought were genuine truth   
   telling. And there have been journalistic endeavors that have really   
   come close to being brilliant and blunt and honest, in a variety of   
   formats. And there has been some film and some television. But it's not   
   like everybody's rushing to make THE WIRE-- more WIREs. I mean, you   
   know, we-- I've pretty much demonstrated how not to make a hit show, you   
   know? I make a show that gets me on Bill Moyers. But-   
      
   BILL MOYERS: I know, but-   
      
   DAVID SIMON: But I don't--   
      
   BILL MOYERS: -critically acclaimed.   
      
   DAVID SIMON: -but I don't get a show that, you know, that makes a lot of   
   money for a network. There are about 749 different shows, dramas and   
   comedies on television right now that you can watch. You know, 748 of   
   them are about the America that I inhabit, that you inhabit.   
      
   BILL MOYERS: Right.   
      
   DAVID SIMON: That most of the viewing public, I guess, inhabits. There   
   was one about the other America. And it was arguing passionately about a   
   place where, let's face it, the economic rules don't apply in the same   
   way. Half of the adult black males in my city are unemployed. That's not   
   an economic model that actually works.   
      
   BILL MOYERS: But I want to close with some poetry. Some poetry that I   
   don't know whether you created or whether you discovered. But it's that   
   unforgettable moment in THE WIRE when we hear "Goodnight Moon." Tell me   
   about that before I play it for the audience.   
      
   DAVID SIMON: You know, I'm going to-- I'm going to tell you that that is   
   straight from a book that I totally admire. CLOCKERS by Richard Price.   
   And Price wrote that episode. And he recreated it right out of the   
   novel. It's almost a benediction for the city. And it is the thing that,   
   you didn't get it if you were a politician or a police commander or a   
   school superintendent, and you were running on your rep. You didn't get   
   that THE WIRE was actually a love letter to Baltimore. From your point   
   of view, what it was, was just this nightmare that you had to like argue   
   against.   
      
   But if you were a schoolteacher or a kid on a corner or a cop walking   
   the beat. If you-- if you were, our sentiments were always with labor,   
   it was always at the street level. If you were one of those people, you   
   couldn't help but hear the affection. That this was-- it may have been a   
   conflicted lover. But it was a love letter nonetheless. And I thought   
   that scene really caught it.   
      
   BILL MOYERS: We'll hear it now, this love letter. Thank you, David   
   Simon, for being with me on the Journal.   
      
   DAVID SIMON: Thank you.   
      
   [...]   
      
   DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Let's say goodnight to everybody. Goodnight moon.   
   You say it.   
      
   CHILD: Goodnight moon.   
      
   DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: There you go. Goodnight stars.   
      
   CHILD: Goodnight stars.   
      
   DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight po-po's.   
      
   CHILD: Goodnight po-po's.   
      
   DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight fiends.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)