“When you walk through the garden you got to watch your back.”
If you’re a fan, you know. The Wire is the best show now not on television (unless it’s on your DVD player and right this moment it’s on mine). If you haven’t seen it – or maybe you tried it and gave up – there will come a time when you will become immersed. And you’ll become a zealot. You will gift seasons of The Wire to your family, your friends and to your mailman.
My friend John McNamara emailed me a few weeks ago to give me the news. Julius Carry had died of pancreatic cancer. Julius was 56 years old. In the early 1990s I was five years beyond the one film I’d written and had produced. It was a lean time. Then I got a call that two producers, Carlton Cuse and Jeffrey Boam, were looking for a little help in scripting a western tv series for the then-fledgling Fox Broadcasting Network. Carlton and Jeffrey gave me the concept, the setting, and the names of the characters. Brisco County, Jr., Socrates Poole, John Bly and Lord Bowler. We worked out the story and I wrote the pilot. Fox approved and we made the series “The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.” It was an adventure for me as well. It started my tv career. Working with Bruce Campbell was a trip. But working with Julius was something special. Julius was a big man. Intimidating at first glance. But the actor I knew was one of the funniest, kindest and quick-to-laugh men I’ve ever met. His character alongside Bruce’s Brisco was designed to be insecure, violent, sensitive, full of bluster, bravado, irrational fears and untapped courage. It was a tough thing to embody that character and to also be the comedy relief to Bruce’s deadpan (and very funny) straight man. But Julius did it terrifically well. Miss you, Bowler.
Welcome. Thanks for dropping in. In short order I’ll be adding to this site, shoveling in some observations, opinions and other items of limited interest. I know this place sounds like a law firm. Actually the site name, the name of my company, is a callback to my formative years. A neighborhood. A street. The place where, as a kid growing up in the midwest, I spent hours watching television and loving it. This was the tv of the 1960s and 70s. The years of Quinn Martin and Irwin Allen. Of Jim West and Alexander Mundy. Of Partridges and Bunkers and Fugitives and Cronkite getting me to the moon and back. If you’ve got an interest how TV works or a question about the biz you need answered drop me a quick note.
If you’re a fan, you know. The Wire is the best show now not on television (unless it’s on your DVD player and right this moment it’s on mine). If you haven’t seen it – or maybe you tried it and gave up – there will come a time when you will become immersed. And you’ll become a zealot. You will gift seasons of The Wire to your family, your friends and to your mailman. 