And just so HBO knows I put MY money where my mouth is, I put a copy of my receipts for seasons 1 & 2 of The Wire on DVD in with my letter to Chris Albrecht.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Getting Down...to The Wire!
Chris Albrecht, Chairman, HBO, Inc.
1100 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Re: The Wire
Mr. Albrecht:
After reading the January 14, 2005 Variety article by Denise Martin, in reference to HBO’s phenomenal drama series, The Wire, I was compelled to script this correspondence. In the article, it was stated that you made the following comment at the TCA session:
“I have received a telegram from every viewer of ‘The Wire’ – all 250 of them.”
As I type this letter, I’m wondering if you meant for your comment to be taken as a joke, because for the life of me I didn’t find it funny – especially considering you can go to your own website and find that almost 9000 individual memberships have been created or utilized in order to play The Wire trivia game. Now, even if you took into consideration that anyone can create multiple screen names to access the special features on the HBO website, it is highly unlikely each of the 250 people that you indicated were The Wire’s only viewers, took the time to create 36 screen names apiece just to push the numbers up. (Source: www.hbo.com/thewire/games.)
I am troubled to see that the Chairman of a network would make jokes about a show that was not only hailed as “program of the year” by Entertainment Weekly, but has received more critical acclaim than most of the other shows in its continuum combined. Every individual person that I have turned on to The Wire has loved it and has joined the laundry list of loyal viewers. Yet, as I conveyed to one of the Vice Presidents of the film studio where I work, there are too many black people featured on The Wire for it to be nominated for a non-black achievement award, or to even be defended by anyone who counts as far as decisions about the show go. I know, I know…that isn’t your fault, it’s just the way it goes in the industry. Who cares if the show is good or not, just as long as the white folks with the Nielsen boxes are watching - right? For the record, I have never met anybody with a Nielsen box in their home. So, who speaks for me? No one, that’s why I’m speaking up for myself in this letter. Since it has been publicized that HBO’s 2004 profits surpassed one billion dollars, it seems to me that you have enough financial strength to put your money where your good shows are – instead of bringing back debris like Carnivale. Oh, I’m sorry, was that harsh of me to say? Well, for you to say that only 250 people watch The Wire is pretty doggone harsh too.
Of course I like to watch The Sopranos, America Undercover, HBO Championship Boxing, Inside the NFL, Six Feet Under, reruns of Sex In The City and even Deadwood, but I can’t see paying money to a network that makes jokes and considers canceling a show that has received as many accolades and sincere viewers as The Wire; all because the real viewers of the show, the ones that can answer every trivia question on your website, are probably way too dark-skinned to be offered a Nielsen box.
Yes, without The Wire, I don’t believe I will have further need to spend the extra ten dollars a month on HBO. I will spend the time that I use to spend watching your network on creating my own scripts and my own network - because from the looks of things, I know where I can find a stellar cast of potentially unemployed thespians who deserve their just due.
Sincerely,
Waset Regir
author.writer.truth defender.
http://www.waset.net/
1100 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Re: The Wire
Mr. Albrecht:
After reading the January 14, 2005 Variety article by Denise Martin, in reference to HBO’s phenomenal drama series, The Wire, I was compelled to script this correspondence. In the article, it was stated that you made the following comment at the TCA session:
“I have received a telegram from every viewer of ‘The Wire’ – all 250 of them.”
As I type this letter, I’m wondering if you meant for your comment to be taken as a joke, because for the life of me I didn’t find it funny – especially considering you can go to your own website and find that almost 9000 individual memberships have been created or utilized in order to play The Wire trivia game. Now, even if you took into consideration that anyone can create multiple screen names to access the special features on the HBO website, it is highly unlikely each of the 250 people that you indicated were The Wire’s only viewers, took the time to create 36 screen names apiece just to push the numbers up. (Source: www.hbo.com/thewire/games.)
I am troubled to see that the Chairman of a network would make jokes about a show that was not only hailed as “program of the year” by Entertainment Weekly, but has received more critical acclaim than most of the other shows in its continuum combined. Every individual person that I have turned on to The Wire has loved it and has joined the laundry list of loyal viewers. Yet, as I conveyed to one of the Vice Presidents of the film studio where I work, there are too many black people featured on The Wire for it to be nominated for a non-black achievement award, or to even be defended by anyone who counts as far as decisions about the show go. I know, I know…that isn’t your fault, it’s just the way it goes in the industry. Who cares if the show is good or not, just as long as the white folks with the Nielsen boxes are watching - right? For the record, I have never met anybody with a Nielsen box in their home. So, who speaks for me? No one, that’s why I’m speaking up for myself in this letter. Since it has been publicized that HBO’s 2004 profits surpassed one billion dollars, it seems to me that you have enough financial strength to put your money where your good shows are – instead of bringing back debris like Carnivale. Oh, I’m sorry, was that harsh of me to say? Well, for you to say that only 250 people watch The Wire is pretty doggone harsh too.
Of course I like to watch The Sopranos, America Undercover, HBO Championship Boxing, Inside the NFL, Six Feet Under, reruns of Sex In The City and even Deadwood, but I can’t see paying money to a network that makes jokes and considers canceling a show that has received as many accolades and sincere viewers as The Wire; all because the real viewers of the show, the ones that can answer every trivia question on your website, are probably way too dark-skinned to be offered a Nielsen box.
Yes, without The Wire, I don’t believe I will have further need to spend the extra ten dollars a month on HBO. I will spend the time that I use to spend watching your network on creating my own scripts and my own network - because from the looks of things, I know where I can find a stellar cast of potentially unemployed thespians who deserve their just due.
Sincerely,
Waset Regir
author.writer.truth defender.
http://www.waset.net/
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Letter to the Predators (1/17/05)
Harassment at Los Angeles International Airport
LAX Community Relations Division
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 100
Los Angeles, CA 90045
To Whom It May Concern:
On January 16, 2005, I drove to the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to pick-up a family member who was scheduled to arrive on an Alaska Airlines flight. Seconds after pulling up at Alaska’s baggage claim terminal, I was met by several men in olive green uniforms, who began to waive me off, telling me rather rudely that I was not allowed to stop in front of the baggage claim area. “Keep moving, keep moving,” they shouted out to me at once, as I searched the swarm of people exiting the vicinity.
After making sure I didn’t see my family member, I drove around the airport as I had been so impolitely instructed to do. Finally, I made my way back to the Alaska terminal where there were still planeloads of travelers exiting the double doors with their luggage. While I inched down the lane in my car, reviewing the faces, looking for the familiar, another representative of the LAX little green men association banged upon my car window with some sort of extremely large flashlight. With an angry stare, the man yelled at me to move my car out of the area and drive around the airport. Without a word, I made my way around the airport, again, but this time I began to get really angry. Not the angry you get when someone slaps the last sour cream and onion potato chip out of your hand, but the angry that caused me to feel my blood boil throughout my body.
Thinking that the third time would be the charm, I pulled up to the Alaska Airlines baggage area and happily spotted my family member waiting for me. There were five or six cars loading ahead of me, so I had to ease up slowly as each car left with its cargo. As I made my way down the lane to meet my soon-to-be passenger, I witnessed a very ignorant bully in a green LAX suit, scream at a man in a yellow vest to “MOVE.” The man being disparaged had just gotten out of his vehicle to open the trunk for his wife and two small children who were approaching from behind. Startled and seemingly scared from being yelled at, the man rushed back to his driver’s side in order to move his car; however, he could not drive forward due to the traffic. The LAX representative could see that the man could not move his car, and he could also see that the man’s passengers were approaching, yet he kept shouting at the man. Because he could not drive forward, the man attempting to pick-up his wife and kids, tried to back up and almost hit his family members in the process. It was a very harrowing and completely unnecessary incident.
Seconds later, another LAX airport simpleton came up to my passenger side window and yelled at me to move my car. Clearly livid by this point, I rolled down my window and screamed, How the f*** am I supposed to pick-up a passenger if you are telling me I can’t stop and pick them up? The LAX employee retorted, “because this is a f****** loading zone!” Exactly what I am going to do… load, I said, rolling up my window in his face. I began to see red and I became so distressed that my inner-most feelings were begging me to get out of my car and slap the man in green, yet common sense and the potential for jail time caused me to yield.
I have traveled to many places – post September 11th, yet I have never encountered such ridiculous treatment of customers at an airport in all of my days. Eventually, America might become a police state, but that hasn’t happened yet. All the same, the bullying I witnessed by LAX employees upon people picking up passengers was apprehensible. I am a United States citizen, yet I was treated like a terrorist by these safari hat crowned rental cops. Yes, there were signs posted that said “no parking and no waiting,” but what does that mean? Does it mean that if your 91-year-old grandmother is rolling out to your car in a wheelchair that you can’t wait for her to arrive at your vehicle? Does it mean that granny should lift weights to build up arm strength so she can roll up next to your moving car and jump from wheelchair to vehicle - Jackie Chan style? What about her luggage? Should you drive around twice so she can throw the luggage in on the first trip and then heave her way into her seat when you come around again?
I would like to understand the absurdity that substantiates how people picking up passengers can’t stop to pick up passengers, yet town cars, taxicabs and limousines can sit and wait for fares until the cows come home. I think a terrorist would use a taxicab to blow something up before he or she would use my Denali. If the concern is so great about people picking up passengers, why let cars into the airport at all? Why not just shuttle all travelers (from Paris Hilton to the man with no feet) to a vacant lot and dump them and their bags on the sidewalk? That way, granny can at least take her time.
The idiocy and harassment that I witnessed at LAX was surely not an aberration. During my dizzying drives around the interior circumference of the airport, I saw many unhappy drivers being accosted by the green men in safari hats. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the airport arrival dock is not a safari site, and the people picking up friends and family members are not potential game for the little men in green to prey upon. This situation needs to be formally addressed immediately. GAME OVER!
Sincerely,
Waset Regir
author.traveler.united states citizen
LAX Community Relations Division
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 100
Los Angeles, CA 90045
To Whom It May Concern:
On January 16, 2005, I drove to the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to pick-up a family member who was scheduled to arrive on an Alaska Airlines flight. Seconds after pulling up at Alaska’s baggage claim terminal, I was met by several men in olive green uniforms, who began to waive me off, telling me rather rudely that I was not allowed to stop in front of the baggage claim area. “Keep moving, keep moving,” they shouted out to me at once, as I searched the swarm of people exiting the vicinity.
After making sure I didn’t see my family member, I drove around the airport as I had been so impolitely instructed to do. Finally, I made my way back to the Alaska terminal where there were still planeloads of travelers exiting the double doors with their luggage. While I inched down the lane in my car, reviewing the faces, looking for the familiar, another representative of the LAX little green men association banged upon my car window with some sort of extremely large flashlight. With an angry stare, the man yelled at me to move my car out of the area and drive around the airport. Without a word, I made my way around the airport, again, but this time I began to get really angry. Not the angry you get when someone slaps the last sour cream and onion potato chip out of your hand, but the angry that caused me to feel my blood boil throughout my body.
Thinking that the third time would be the charm, I pulled up to the Alaska Airlines baggage area and happily spotted my family member waiting for me. There were five or six cars loading ahead of me, so I had to ease up slowly as each car left with its cargo. As I made my way down the lane to meet my soon-to-be passenger, I witnessed a very ignorant bully in a green LAX suit, scream at a man in a yellow vest to “MOVE.” The man being disparaged had just gotten out of his vehicle to open the trunk for his wife and two small children who were approaching from behind. Startled and seemingly scared from being yelled at, the man rushed back to his driver’s side in order to move his car; however, he could not drive forward due to the traffic. The LAX representative could see that the man could not move his car, and he could also see that the man’s passengers were approaching, yet he kept shouting at the man. Because he could not drive forward, the man attempting to pick-up his wife and kids, tried to back up and almost hit his family members in the process. It was a very harrowing and completely unnecessary incident.
Seconds later, another LAX airport simpleton came up to my passenger side window and yelled at me to move my car. Clearly livid by this point, I rolled down my window and screamed, How the f*** am I supposed to pick-up a passenger if you are telling me I can’t stop and pick them up? The LAX employee retorted, “because this is a f****** loading zone!” Exactly what I am going to do… load, I said, rolling up my window in his face. I began to see red and I became so distressed that my inner-most feelings were begging me to get out of my car and slap the man in green, yet common sense and the potential for jail time caused me to yield.
I have traveled to many places – post September 11th, yet I have never encountered such ridiculous treatment of customers at an airport in all of my days. Eventually, America might become a police state, but that hasn’t happened yet. All the same, the bullying I witnessed by LAX employees upon people picking up passengers was apprehensible. I am a United States citizen, yet I was treated like a terrorist by these safari hat crowned rental cops. Yes, there were signs posted that said “no parking and no waiting,” but what does that mean? Does it mean that if your 91-year-old grandmother is rolling out to your car in a wheelchair that you can’t wait for her to arrive at your vehicle? Does it mean that granny should lift weights to build up arm strength so she can roll up next to your moving car and jump from wheelchair to vehicle - Jackie Chan style? What about her luggage? Should you drive around twice so she can throw the luggage in on the first trip and then heave her way into her seat when you come around again?
I would like to understand the absurdity that substantiates how people picking up passengers can’t stop to pick up passengers, yet town cars, taxicabs and limousines can sit and wait for fares until the cows come home. I think a terrorist would use a taxicab to blow something up before he or she would use my Denali. If the concern is so great about people picking up passengers, why let cars into the airport at all? Why not just shuttle all travelers (from Paris Hilton to the man with no feet) to a vacant lot and dump them and their bags on the sidewalk? That way, granny can at least take her time.
The idiocy and harassment that I witnessed at LAX was surely not an aberration. During my dizzying drives around the interior circumference of the airport, I saw many unhappy drivers being accosted by the green men in safari hats. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the airport arrival dock is not a safari site, and the people picking up friends and family members are not potential game for the little men in green to prey upon. This situation needs to be formally addressed immediately. GAME OVER!
Sincerely,
Waset Regir
author.traveler.united states citizen
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)