Burnin’

Darby and I have been intently viewing seasons one through four of HBO’s The Wire (care of Netflix), which leaves just season five to go. I’m afraid we’re already dreading the end of the series. We don’t want it to end, the way you don’t want a great novel to end. But end it must.

In preparation for this coming conclusion of what one critic calls the “greatest TV show ever made,” I’ve begun searching for and processing the criticism.

Mark Bowden of The Atlantic called the show’s co-creator, David Simon, “the angriest man in television.” In an interview with Bill Moyers on PBS, Simon says he doesn’t mind “being called that” and asks rhetorically if there’s a better response to the America of the last decade.

Bowden also makes note of the literary form advanced by The Wire.

Some years ago, Tom Wolfe called on novelists to abandon the cul-de-sac of modern “literary” fiction, which he saw as self-absorbed, thumb-sucking gamesmanship, and instead to revive social realism, to take up as a subject the colossal, astonishing, and terrible pageant of contemporary America. I doubt he imagined that one of the best responses to this call would be a TV program, but the boxed sets blend nicely on a bookshelf with the great novels of American history.

It’s a point well taken. I’ve often thought that Shakespeare, were he alive today, would be successful in Hollywood. It’s also interesting to understand Simon’s background as a reporter at The Baltimore Sun. For 12 years the man told detailed, well researched, fact-filled stories, but those stories didn’t change policy in City Hall, Annapolis or Washington, DC. Simon isn’t holding his breath to see these changes come as a result of his TV show either. He sees the problems in America (like the failed War on Drugs that his show dramatizes) as systemic, and argues that conditions will have to become much worse before they get better.

Here, let’s listen to the man:

Simon says our economy doesn’t need the underclass, and that’s why these urban black communities have been pushed completely from the frame of American life. He’s right about the extreme marginalization, but I would counter that this nation does need the underclass and that poor, under-educated workers can become productive and change their station in life and possibly the country’s future in the process.

President Obama is conducting a “jobs summit” this week to help spur jobs training and jobs creation. In my opinion, we need to get off our collective ass now and institute a 1930s-style public works program. It doesn’t take a genius to see how much work there is to do. The nation’s roads and bridges need repairs and we must build high speed rail from Seattle to San Diego and from Miami to Boston. Moving to energy, the nation’s entire electrical grid needs to be refitted to store and conduct DC current produced by solar and wind. And the list goes on. Meanwhile, little progress is made.

In one episode of The Wire, “Bunny,” of Baltimore city police, says he doesn’t know what the answer is to getting kids off the corner and returning the streets to the citizens of Baltimore, only that it can’t be a lie. That’s correct, and it can’t be a lie in real life. Yet, empire is a lie. The wars to maintain it are a lie. The war on drugs is a lie. Saying we don’t have the resources nor the will to house the homeless, feed the hungry and care for the uninsured is a lie.

It’s easy to get fired up by The Wire, and that art’s role in society—to challenge us, to make us think, and help us to care. On these fronts, HBO’s gritty crime drama is a huge success.

I love to eat fish. Fresh fish, frozen fish, you name it. But the eco-conscious consumer in me wants to know which is better for me, and the environment.

Order flash frozen Alaskan salmon from Jerry’s Meats & Seafood in Juneau

According to Abby Haight of The Oregonian, frozen is better for the planet because it takes so much less energy to make it safely to your dinner plate.

“We said, ‘Eat wild salmon,’” said Astrid Scholz, vice president of knowledge systems at Ecotrust. “But it made me a little uneasy…. There’s something wrong about catching an Alaska salmon, putting it on a helicopter, and then putting it on a jet to Moscow and then to New York so someone can eat their $50 dinner of fresh Copper River salmon.”

Salmon that are flash-frozen at sea can be transported by freighter or train, which uses significantly less fossil fuel than jets. Troll-caught fish burn diesel fuel as ships chase fish across the seas. An Alaska salmon caught by a purse seiner, however, has a low carbon impact, Scholz said.

megnut and Ninecooks both have articles on cooking flash frozen fish.

I’m fascinated by Jonathan Harris and his sketchbooks.

When we use manual instruments to write and draw, I think there’s more feeling in the work, similar to how there’s more sound in a vinyl record than there is in a compact disc.

Harris is obviously a master with pen and paper, but he’s also a technologist. As he considers next steps in the evolution of storytelling, he imagines that it will play out online (which is more than a little likely).

Here’s a passage from the video above that’s worth studying closely:

Anything can be the hub. Anything can be the center. I really believe that’s the future of information presentation. The metaphor of the page as an organizing principal is dead. It’s archaic. It doesn’t work anymore. A better approach is to portray a world of connectivity. A world of connections. A huge connected graph where any node in the graph can be the first order node and everything else is expressed in relation to that node.

For sure, the page has always been a lonely place. Maybe that’s why I find comfort in it. The reality is both modalities are in play today—the lonely page (physical or digital) and the rushing river of real time “conversation.” Both have immense value. But the roar of the river can be deafening, especially in the rainy season. A notebook is a quiet place to think, a refuge from modernity. I need to spend more time in mine.

PORTLAND—Last night, about 50 entrepreneurs, and those interested in that lonely path, gathered in Keen Footwear’s Great Room to hear from a panel of local business owners willing to share their hard-earned advise. The “Start Your Own Business” panel was organized by Zimmerman Community Center, whose mission is “to strengthen civic and spiritual life while developing the identity of The River District.”

The panel was moderated by Randy Miller, president of the Portland Ambassadors business advocacy group. Michelle Cairo of In the Black; Robin Jones of 88 Inc.; Otto Papasadero of NARDA (and a Zimmerman board member); and Sarah Shaoul of Black Wagon were on the panel.

The panel covered a lot of ground in a short span, but for me the key takeaway came from Papasadero. He said, “Your business has to be well documented to be successful. Documents detail how the business works.”

After the session, I asked Papasadero to clarify and name the actual documents he thinks are important. He said 1) your business plan and 2) your operations manual. Papasadero also told a story about how Warren Buffett was so impressed with the documentation from Dufresne Furniture in Winnipeg, that he offered to buy the company’s documents (not the actual company).

Papasadero’s point on documentation is ultimately partly about transfer of ownership. He said when one sells their company, even if it’s a sole-proprietorship, the buyer wants a turn-key experience and that’s found in the company’s documentation.

Another highlight of the evening came in Miller’s introductory remarks. He said “there’s a perception that this community is anti-business, which is dead wrong.” Miller said business formation in Portland has tripled this year. He also made a great point about the mutually beneficial relationship between one big business and many small business. For instance, Intel, the largest private employer in Oregon, has 8000 Oregon vendors, he said.

There was also talk from Miller and the panelists about the “defining moment” that drives one to launch (and stick with) a business. Papasadero said defining moments come along semi-regularly, “but we don’t always recognize them.”

I’m reflecting now on my own defining moments, and I have to say, being fired more than once from an ad agency job helped me see that there’s little security in placing one’s fate in another manager’s hands. Yet, I still go back and forth, thinking that “a job” might be the better path (I wish I didn’t). Another entrepreneur I know also struggles and wavers from time to time. But he reminded me earlier this week that when he did work for other people, he hated it. That’s a common theme among entrepreneurs and another important source of “defining moments.”