At the Amplify Baltimore event on January 8th, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefield excoriated “The Wire,” calling it “a smear this city will take decades to overcome” and the “most unfair use of literary license that we’ve borne witness to.” Keep in mind as you read the quote below that “The Wire” is almost universally praised as the greatest television show ever made.

“I heard all this stuff about, ‘Well there’s crime shows about L.A., about New York, about Miami,’” Bealefeld said. “You know what Miami gets in their crime show? They get detectives that look like models, and they drive around in sports cars. And you know what New York gets, they get these incredibly tough prosecutors, competent cops that solve the most crazy, complicated cases.”

“What Baltimore gets is this reinforced notion that it’s a city full of hopelessness, despair and dysfunction. There was very little effort – beyond self-serving – to highlight the great and wonderful things happening here, and to indict the whole population, the criminal justice system, the school system.” [Baltimore Sun via The A.V. Club]

Bealefield concluded his remarks by saying that college students would be better off studying “Family Guy” than “that stupid show.” OH NO HE DIH-N’T!

Of course, David Simon, the former Sun journalist who created “The Wire,” is notoriously prickly about defending his shows, and he responded with a bitch slap of verbiage that should send Bealefield crawling back to his “CSI”-loving hole. OMAR COMIN’, YO:

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David Simon, the former journalist who brought “Homicide,” “The Corner,” “The Wire,” “Generation Kill,” and “Treme” to television, has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, the $500,000 award given to innovators that is more widely know as the “genius grant.”

“I confess to a feeling that I can only describe as a vague sense of shame,” says Simon on the phone from New Orleans, where he’s in story meetings for the second season of “Treme,” a post-Katrina HBO drama. “It was exacerbated when I went online and looked at the people who’d gotten fellowships in the past. The majority of them are involved in endeavors which are very tangible — efforts to combat poverty or economic disparities, or to improve the environment. And while I think storytelling is a meaningful way to spend your life… it does feel a little bit secondary or off-point. I definitely felt a little sheepish after looking at the list.” [WaPo]

Well, he certainly speaks like a genius. I don’t think I’ve ever talked that long without using the word “awesome.”

Embedded below is video of Simon talking about the honor. While I doubt he really needs a half milly to keep pursuing his craft, I’m glad he got this recognition. The Emmys sure as hell weren’t gonna do it.

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I love David Simon. Not only did he create the best TV series ever made with “The Wire,” but he also captured my experience in Iraq with such alarming detail that I got flashbacks while watching “Generation Kill.” He has an unrivaled dedication to realism in his story telling, and he deflects criticism with a witheringly insightful understanding of his material.

With the first season of Simon’s “Treme” now finished, there are a couple refrains that are common in reviews: excellent music and acting, a plodding pace, and perhaps too much reverence for the culture of New Orleans. Simon spoke to Alan Sepinwall for a lengthy interview at Hit Fix that addresses these criticisms and more. Below are the eight most snobbishly dismissive quotes directed at his critics, with helpful translations:

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David Simon, who I shouldn’t have to tell you is the creator of “The Wire” and “Treme,” was Stephen Colbert’s guest last night. It’s a great interview to watch, because as much as I love Simon’s work, he has a tendency to take himself so seriously that he’s not always the best ambassador of his own work. Enter Colbert, who says things like:

["Treme" is] just like “Sex and the City,” except the city is New Orleans, and instead of sex, it’s heartbreaking despair.
You say that “Treme” is “Glee” for black people… are you saying that there are no gay black people?

Video of the entire interview is below. It includes a good clip from “Treme” that I hadn’t seen before, and I’ve spent a lot of time watching every little clip of “Treme” that I can find.

Anyway, “Treme” debuts this coming Sunday, and I recommend you watch it. You know how everyone who’s watched “The Wire” can’t stop talking about how great it is? Well, this is your chance to get in on the ground floor. You either watch it now, or you resignedly make a resolution to watch the entire damn series on DVD six years from now after getting sick of people talking how you need to watch it. Join us, or we’ll annoy you with pseudo-intellectual conversations stemming from white guilt.

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I’ve got a double-dip of “Treme” goodness this morning. Embedded below, you’ll find not only a new behind-the-scenes video of David Simon’s HBO series about post-Katrina New Orleans, but also the first full trailer for the show. The trailer is similar to the teaser released in January, but it has the added benefit of jazz bands, chefs cooking, strippers, funerals, and the first look at the cast of characters, including Clarke Peters and Wendell Pierce from ‘The Wire,” Khandi Alexander of “CSI: Miami” (obligatory: YEEEAAHHHH!!!), Steve Zahn, John Goodman, and more.

You don’t understand how excited I am for this. I’ve never been one of the cool kids with premium cable before. For years, I had to hear about how awesome “The Wire” and “Band of Brothers” were before I finally watched them on DVD. And now here I am in 2010, subscribing to HBO and following the cultural follow-ups to those in “The Pacific” and “Treme.” If only my parents could see me now. Unfortunately, they both had their eyes clawed out when their double-wide was taken over by rabid raccoons.

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