A Ragtag Bunch of Misfits

Anybody in for a bit of trope talk? Here is one I am pretty fond of. You ever heard of a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits? Briefly, it's a team of heroes or protagonists made of heteroclite, mismatched members, some professional, some experts, but some not, with different backgrounds and conflicting personalities. It's often used in sci-fi adventures and in fantasies, I'm sure you can think of a lot of titles that use this trope, but it works for all genres and I particularly enjoy it in crime fiction, sometimes even in spy thrillers. And, I might add, sometimes the best of the genre: the Major Crimes Unit in The Wire is made of a ragtag bunch of misfits. They gather a bunch of cops from various departments, some (real or perceived) humps, some mavericks, into one unit to wrap up a hot potato case, they end up showing to be the best of the best. They're also great in heist stories. This trope makes for great character interaction. I use it in my own writing, because I love it so much.

Bushmills for Saint Paddy's?

 "McNulty: Can I get a Jameson?
Bartender: Bushmills OK?
McNulty: That’s Protestant whiskey.
Bartender: Price is right, ain’t it?
McNulty: Make it neat."

Well, first thing first: happy Saint Patrick's Day to you all. I will make time to drink today and, at some point, I might even accompany my usual pint with a shot of some Irish spirit. It might be Bushmills, even though it would be ironic to drink a Protestant whiskey on the day of a Catholic saint. But when we went to Belfast, we visited their distillery briefly. Could be a nice way to remember the trip. Oh and for those who don't know where the exchange above is from, it's from The Wire. You can watch the scene here. I've been wanting to say the reply next time they offer me some in a pub. Haven't had the chance since the local Irish pub shut down, but maybe today is my lucky day. Luck of the Irish, as they say.

The Wire as a videogame

No, no it does not truly exist, but I found this on YouTube a while ago and it really made me laugh. I thought I'd share it today, just to put you in a good mood for a few minutes in the middle of a week where a lot of you must be back at work. Anyway, so The Wire does not have a RPG videogame based on it just yet and it is unlikely that it will have this retro look. That said, if it did exist, I would most definitely want to play it:

All I am going to say about this

Like many people in the world, I was both appalled and disgusted by the election of Donald Trump as the president of the USA. So the US has voted in office a loud mouth, bullying, ignorant, White trash jerk... and partially, for some of the voters, because he was all that. More worryingly, he was backed, and will bring to the White House with him the ultra-religious right, among others his VP, who is by any other name a Christian mollah and even worse than him. Angry, did I say? Outraged, yes. But, I will try not to panic, as a certain David Wong suggested. I do think this is potentially catastrophic news, the free world might not be so free if Trump and his cronies have their way. But like Wong said, we can do something and I remember how I was feeling before 2008 about American politics. It got better. So I will say one thing, from my favourite TV drama The Wire, a quote from Poot I read again today. It is not a fancy analysis, but it sums up my feeling about the whole election: "World going one way, people another yo." You can see the scene in context here. In essence, this is what happens. The US is going another way. Backwards.

Being mishpocha?

I hope nobody minds that I blog again about Krav Maga. I am a man of habits, but I try to diversify the topics of my blog posts as much as possible. But anyway, tonight was another Krav Maga class. We are getting more comfortable working and learning together and we also keep in touch through the week, via Facebook or emails. We gathered a few weeks ago for a drink and we socialize during chance encounters in town. Our instructor often talk of us as a big family that he trains, for him it is a bit like a second family. So I half joking said that we were now mishpocha. I know the term from The Wire, which has been used once. It is a Yiddish term meaning family in the large sense, sometimes it includes close friends. It is a fitting term for an Israeli martial art. And it is the word of the day (I try to bring a bit of culture to this blog see). I don't know how mishpocha we really are, as I cannot say any of my fellow warriors are friends. They are still acquaintances, some I don't even know their name. All the same, it is a nice word to use and a status to aspire to.

That's Protestant Whiskey

"McNulty: Can I get a Jameson?
Bartender: Bushmills OK?
McNulty: That’s Protestant whiskey.
Bartender: Price is right, ain’t it?
McNulty: Make it neat."

I blogged before about the urban legend regarding Bushmills. I learned about it because of this scene in The Wire. This anecdotal exchange between McNulty and the barman is one of many scenes in the series, scenes that are seemingly unimportant, but give character to the show. One of many reasons why I love it so much. I took this picture in the duty free boutiques of Southampton Airport. Looking at the bottles, I could only think of the scene in my favorite TV drama. Next time I go out for a drink, I want to order a whiskey just for the sake of being offered Bushmills. So I can say the immortal line. Not that I know much about whiskey, to be honest. I enjoy it from time to time, but cannot make the difference between a decent one and a great one. Or even a bad one, come to think of it. But I do want to say this once in my lifetime.

The Bushmills controversy

I blogged about it before. I discovered this controversy in The Wire. My favorite TV series. Apparently, Bushmills is Protestant whiskey, according to Jimmy McNulty. Who, as a good Irish-American Catholic, has Jameson as his poison of choice. Apparently, the association between Jameson and Catholics and Bushmills and Protestants is more or less a urban legend. You can find out more about it here. For all its urbane legendary nature, it still makes for a great scene that reveals a lot about McNulty. He is outside his element, he stands out in this crowd, even when it comes to drinks.

I Feel Alright

As it is Saturday night, I thought I would put some music on Vraie Fiction to share with you. Another one from The Wire, the song ending the second season. It is Feel Alright by Steve Earle, who also played a role in the show. With its lyrics about precious contraband, distant lands and concubines, t sounds like it was written for the show and this very season, but it was not, strangely enough. It predates it by a few years. In any case, it's a great song.

The wisdom of Lester Freamon

I did not blog about The Wire for a long while, not since August 2013. Rewatching it recently, I thought this was long overdue. This time, I have decided to quote veteran cop, natural police and investigator extraordinaire Lester Freamon, masterfully interpreted by Clarke Peters. Not only is he probably the smartest character of the show, at least the smartest on the side of the law, he is also the wisest. He says things that are pure existentialist wisdom. This one, for instance, which you can read on the picture. You can watch the scene on YouTube here (I cannot embed it unfortunately). Something worth following.

Fast Train (Solomon Burke)

I thought this blog needed a bit of music. Something not to chase away the melancholy of a Sunday, but to embrace it. So I uploaded another song heard in The Wire, this time the end of season 3. It is Fast Train sung by Solomon Burke. Although it is a cover from a Van Morrison, I prefer the interpretation of Burke I think. Something about his voice. Today I prefer Burke's version anyway. So here it is.

I Walk on Gilded Splinters

I am reading The Cut by George Pelecanos, and like all of his novels it is full of music that enhances the atmosphere. Strangely, I don't listen to it when I read it. I should try. But it inspired me to upload something for this Friday. This is I Walk on Gilded Splinters by Paul Weller, which incidentally was the final song of the season 4 of The Wire. I vow a cult to this cult drama series, which Pelecanos also read and produced. So here it is anyway...

The Body of an American

It is the 4th of July, Independence Day. And I barely noticed. I guess in the country the US declared their independence from, it should go pretty much unnoticed. It struck me today that, while I grew to lvoe American culture through its literature and TV, I have never been to the United States. Strange. And I thought, to commemorate it, that I should upload a song... But it would be pointless of uploading a patriotic song of a country I don't belong to. So I came up with, yet again, The Body of an American by The Pogues, even though I uploaded it before. I first heard it, of course, on The Wire, the greatest American drama, heck, the best drama, bare none. It might be more about Ireland than America, but there is something about the American dream in the song, and I find the "I'm a free born man of the USA" very powerful. So here it is.

Bunk Moreland (!) on this blog

Well, it seems that (finally) Vraie Fiction is attracting other fans from The Wire. On this post, from more than a year ago, someone commented using the pseudonym of Bunk Moreland. The post was about raw eggs in a tall glass of beer for breakfast. "Bunk" gave an instructive comment, explaining that it may be a hangover cure. He also said he heard about tomato juice being added to the mix. which might be a Rhode Island variation. I need to try it once, if only for curiosity. But anyway, it made me very happy to see that an old post still brings readers and comments.

The Greeks of The Wire

I was thinking about this post recently, and it struck me that the villains in The French Connection, especially Alain Charnier, inspired the The Greek criminal organisation in The Wire. Known as... The Greeks. Which is a bit of a misnomer, as while the leaders are Greek (or maybe not, see below) their staff is from various nationalities: from Ukraine, Israel, Eastern Europe. They control the port of Baltimore, and supply the country with stolen goods, alcohol, women and of course drugs.

Their leader is known as The Greek, an elderly man who runs his shadowy empire from a small café near the port, where he sits around, inconspicuous, never talking when there are visitors. His second-in-command is Spiros Vondas, played by Paul Ben-Victor. At the end of season 2, we learn the Spiros's real name is not Spiros, and that The Greek is not even Greek. I love these villains. They are the most amoral characters of the whole series, the most ruthless too, in a series not short of ruthless people. Under their shopkeeper appearances, they are brutal thugs. For them crime is merely a business which has to be conduct methodically and rationally. This is what makes them resilient, this is what makes them dangerous. You can see what I mean here, in a nutshell, by the way they murder a Turkish sailor. Pure malevolence. More popular shows have tried to make memorable villains, but I have yet to see villains as evil as The Greeks of The Wire.

The Best Sandwich in America (?)

This is a post about guilty pleasures. Tonight I watched an utterly stupid TV program, an d I am actually enjoying it. It is called Adam Richman's Best Sandwich in America. With Adam Richman. I know zilch about the guy. I usually hate, hate, HATE that kind of television program. I mean it is really stupid: a contest with different sandwiches from different places in the US. How braindead is that? That said, I do LOVE sandwiches, I am a real sucker for them. And the episode that caught my attention and made me watch it as if it was a high standard BBC documentary was set in Baltimore and Washington D.C. I visited neither place, however Baltimore was immortalised of course in The Wire and Washington in the novels of George Pelecanos. Who also wrote on the aforementioned Wire. And both Pelecanos's novels and the TV series describe the cultural aspects of both cities, including the food they eat. The contender from Baltimore was a crab sandwich, made in a diner I think I saw in The Wire, the contender from Washington D.C. was a club sandwich made by a French chef.

The club sandwich won, and however intrigued I was by the crab sandwich I agreed with Richman about the club sandwich. I love club sandwich, how "classic" a sandwich it is, this one had an originality to it. It had avocado and a fried egg. My mouth was watering just watching it. I am a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to club sandwiches, I have tried them all around, in greasy spoons in Montreal and here in the UK (I know where to find decent ones and even one excellent open club sandwich). And this one was standing out from all the ones I remembered seeing or tasting. You can find more about it here. I will not watch more of the show, however I love sandwiches. I can eat plenty of junk, but junk TV I watch it at small doses. But this episode, just like a good club sandwich, was a guilty pleasure. And I know where to eat if I ever go to Washington D.C.

Two trivial things I learned from The Wire

This week at work, I taped on my desk the NATO phonetic alphabet, because even in the private sector it gets useful sometimes when spelling something on the phone. Like my own name. And it made me rediscover something, which I already knew from The Wire. Later on, I had a shot of Bushmills whiskey in the local Irish pub, to get rid of the sore throat I have. Which reminded me of another thing I learned from The Wire. So I learned at least two trivial things I learned from The Wire:

1)Quebec is the word used for Q in the NATO phonetic alphabet, which I learned from Lester Freamont in season 2, as he used it.

2)Bushmills is Protestant whiskey, according to the Irish-American McNulty in season 3. He asks for Jameson in an evening at the private school his sons is attending (or about to), the barman offers him Bushmill, which McNulty accepts reluctantly (a little bit more here).

I think the second trivia is more famous than the first, at least among whiskey aficionados. Still strange to think of my country in military terms, and as representative of the letter Q. Moral of those two non story: crime fiction can be quite educational.

Two things I share with President Obama

It is the 4th of July, Independence Day, so first I want to wish a happy 4th of July to all my American readers. Then, as the USA are celebrated today, I thought I would mention here that I share two things with President Obama. I am not making this up. We both read The Way Home by George Pelecanos (proof here). And we both are fans of The Wire. Better still, his favourite character is Omar Little. And Omar is one of my favourite characters on the show. I don't consider Obama to be the greatest president of all time, but I like him as a person, and I find him both intelligent and educated, two qualities politicians, or indeed public figures, rarely have. So I am glad I share this with him. It is not like sharing things with, say, the pope. That freaked me out. Now, what I can say about our similar tastes? Great minds think alike.

Lake Trout and cultural Baltimore

I was watching my favourite TV show today, The Wire, fourth season. And there was a mention of a lake trout, which was what Randy Wagstaff wanted to eat. I thought it was strange a kid from the ghetto liked trout, which I always imagine like a fish for fancy dinners, then I discovered it is a fried fish sandwich. More about it here. Basically, it is quite close to the fish and chips: simple hearty and deep fried. One of the many, many things I love about The Wire is that Baltimore is a character in itself: you learn about its colours, flavours, its culture. And it is done in a subdued, almost subliminal way: no explanation is given, the characters simply order lake trout, or drop raw eggs in their beer, or eat blue crabs. I blogged before that food has an important role in national and regional identities. The show illustrates this brilliantly. I have never seen it done so well on TV, and very rarely in novels. So I have never been in Baltimore, but I discover this city and want to learn more.

Beer and raw eggs for breakfast?

Do not worry: I am not talking about what I am going to have tomorrow morning. No, I will enjoy peanut butter toasts. Simple but delicious. But I am watching the second season of The Wire (again) and this is what the dockers have. They order it as breakfast. It is a startling image, seeing them drinking beer with a raw egg in the morning. As a child I once drank a bit of raw egg by mistake, thinking it was milk, I still remember the disgusting taste. I had a quick look on Google and there is info about it on Yahoo and elsewhere. I have no doubt this is authentic tradition, in Baltimore and probably elsewhere. I wonder if anyone who read this have heard of it outside fiction and witnessed it, or better still, have tried the unusual breakfast themselves.

Way Down in the Hole

I know I blogged about this song before, but that was almost three years ago. And I know I often blog about The Wire (last time I mentioned was not even a week ago), but it is such a great show and its music is haunting me. So I have decided to upload on Vraie Fiction Way Down in the Hole by Tom Waits, because I keep listening to it. And well, Lent is nearly over, soon it will be Good Friday and Easter and this song mentions Jesus plenty and Satan, although in a sarcastic, even cynical tone. I am wondering a lot about the meaning of the song. I don't know much about Tom Waits as an artist, know zilch about his beliefs or disbeliefs, but I think Way Down in the Hole is about the human condition, about the threats we face and the precarious nature of our situation. Life is a constant struggle against unknown, terrible menaces, often against our own demons.