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The Rest Of America, With Some Small Exceptions, Has Been Bulldozed And Rebuilt And Then Bulldozed And Rebuilt Again. Our Places Have Become Interchangeable. Here In New Orleans, Everything From The Architecture To The Way In Which People Eat, The Way In Which They Talk, The Way In Which They Do Business, The Way In Which They Dance, The Manner In Which Everything Is Set To A Parade Beat, They're All From Here. There's No Place Like It.

-David Simon

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The Rest Of America,

David Simon

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The Rest Of America, With Some Small Exceptions, Has Been Bulldozed And Rebuilt And Then Bulldozed And Rebuilt Again. Our Places Have Become Interchangeable. Here In New Orleans, Everything From The Architecture To The Way In Which People Eat, The Way In Which They Talk, The Way In Which They Do Business, The Way In Which They Dance, The Manner In Which Everything Is Set To A Parade Beat, They're All From Here. There's No Place Like It.

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How That Happened - How The Money And The Power Arrayed Itself And Who Got The Share In That, Who Got Cut Out, Who Was Exploited And Who Did The Exploiting - That To Me Is A Story Of The Deuce That's More About Almost The America That We Inhabit Today, More Than Just Merely About Pornography Or Prostitution.

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If I Were A Person Of Color In Florida, I Would Pick Up A Brick And Start Walking Toward That Courthouse In Sanford. Those That Do Not, Those That Hold The Pain And Betrayal Inside And Somehow Manage To Resist Violence - These Citizens Are Testament To A Stoic Tolerance That Is More Than The Rest Of Us Deserve. I Confess, Their Patience And Patriotism Is Well Beyond My Own.

Sex Work Is A Completely Unregulated Industry And To Make The Affront Even Worse, The Product And The Labourers Are The Same Thing! The Product Is The Sexuality Of The Actual Labourers: Flesh. I Think In That Sense, The Exploitative Nature Of Unencumbered Capitalism Is Made Even More Dramatic.

Pornography Has Become Rationalized. It's Become Much More Coherent And Profitable.

The Rest Of America, With Some Small Exceptions, Has Been Bulldozed And Rebuilt And Then Bulldozed And Rebuilt Again. Our Places Have Become Interchangeable. Here In New Orleans, Everything From The Architecture To The Way In Which People Eat, The Way In Which They Talk, The Way In Which They Do Business, The Way In Which They Dance, The Manner In Which Everything Is Set To A Parade Beat, They're All From Here. There's No Place Like It.

People From Here Will Often Say, "i'm Not From The United States, I'm From New Orleans."

With More Than 80 Percent Of Americans Living In Metropolitan Areas, There Are Still Demagogues Who Want To Run Down The Idea Of Multiculturalism, Of Urbanity, Being The Only Future We Have. We Either Live Or Die Based On How We Live In Cities, And Our Society Is Either Going To Be Great Or Not Based On How We Perform As Creatures Of The City.

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Healing From Our Past Is An Essential Aspect Of Expanding Our Sense Of Self And Awakening Our Capacity To Love. This Shift Often Manifests As A Change In The Questions We've Been Asking Ourselves. Instead Of What Do I Need? We Ask, How Can I Serve? Instead Of What Am I Getting Out Of This? We Start To Ask, What Can I Bring To This Situation To Promote The Highest Possible Outcome For Everyone Involved?

When We Were Kids Coming Up, If You Stole Your Dad's Playboy Magazine, That Was About As Much Of An Education As You Were Gonna Get. You Finish Looking At The Centrefold And You Read 'the Playboy Adviser' That Told You About What Stereo To Buy And Something About Sex Which You Didn't Quite Understand, And You Were Still Just As Confused. Now If You're Ten The Entire World Of Human Sexuality, And A Very Misogynistic Version Of That, Is Available To You On A Laptop After A Couple Of Key Strokes. I Think It's Changed The Vernacular In The Way Men Address Women.

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A Little Anger Is A Good Thing If It Isn't On Your Own Behalf, If It's For Others Deserving Of Your Anger, Your Empathy.

Not Only Did This New Pornography Industry Change The Way Men Look At Women And How We Relate To Sex, How We Sell Stuff, And Not Only Did It Change America's Cultural Landscape - It's Also This Incredible Metaphor For A Market-based Economy. The Great Pyramid Scheme That America Has Become. I Felt Like In Were Larger Themes In Terms Of Culture And Economics That Could Be Addressed.

Healing Is The Process Of Reestablishing The Integration Between Body, Mind, And Spirit, Creating Opportunities For The Return Of The Memory Of Wholeness.

Nobody Reads Anymore In America. Reading Has Become The Least Effective Delivery System For Narrative. That's Sad Because Prose Is The Means By Which You Can Deliver Very Complicated, Nuanced Explanations Of Problems And Possible Solutions.

What Drugs Have Not Destroyed, The War On Them Has

There Were A Lot Of Video Store Owners And Managers Out Of Work, Once Pornography Became More About Streaming And Downloads. But The Other Thing Is That There Are A Lot Of People Who Make Money By Finding A Place To Stand And Add Almost Nothing. It's Particularly Ironic If Your Job Title Is Pimp. On Some Level, In A Healthier World Where Sex Work Could Be Rationalized And The Risk Reduced, Your Whole Job Title Would Be Extraneous Anyway. It's Not Exactly A Point Of Great Grievance If You're A Pimp That Suddenly Your Prostitutes Don't Require The Same Level Of Reliance.

Since The Donald Trump Election, Which Has Involved This Administration Making Direct Attacks On Press Freedoms, You're Actually Seeing A Certain Amount Of Rallying And Reinvigoration By The National Press In Terms Of Covering National Issues And The Presidency. The Washington Post And The New York Times, Mother Jones, Propublica And A Lot Of Other Places, They've Actually Done Some Really Strong Work When Confronted With This Administration. But The Resources That You Used To Have At State And Local Level Aren't There Anymore.

You Shoot Another Guy—well, Okay, This Is Baltimore. You Shoot Three Guys, It’s Time To Admit You Have A Problem.

We Either Live Or Die Based On How We Live In Cities, And Our Society Is Either Going To Be Great Or Not Based On How We Perform As Creatures Of The City.

Laughter Is A Symptom Of Spirituality. Laughter Is The Flow Of Love Coursing Through Your Body. Laughter Is The Nectar Of Present Moment Awareness. Invite More Laughter Into Your Life And Relish The Magic In Every Moment.

You Have The Capacity To Change The Plotline Of Your Life, Even If You've Been Acting From The Same Script Since Before You Can Remember.

We Didn't Create The Culture Of Film. We Certainly Market It Better Than Anyone In The World, But Film Could Have Happened Anywhere. It's Not Distinctly American, As Witnessed By The Fact That There Are Film Communities Throughout The World That Tell Stories To Their Own Cultural Liking.

I'm Just A Swell Guy. No, That's A Ridiculous Notion - If You're Being An Asshole To People, You're Being An Asshole, That's All There Is To It. It Can't Be Rationalized Because You Wrote Something Worthwhile. First Obligation Is To Other People.

Unless You Loosen The Hold That Your Past Has On You, Your Future Will Unfold In Much The Same Way . . . It Is Time To Begin Writing A New Script That Accurately Reflects The Beautiful, Powerful, And Worthy Being You Are.

What Drugs Haven't Destroyed, The War Against Them Has

Any Music Can Be Healing If It Inspires, Relaxes, Encourages Or Creates Enthusiasm For Life In You.

Enthusiasm For Life

You Have The Capacity To Change The Plot Line Of Your Life, Even If You've Been Acting From The Same Script Since Before You Can Remember. No Matter What Has Happened Up To This Point, You Have The Right And The Capacity To Be Happy. You Are An Innately Creative Being, Capable Of Writing A Love Story Worth Living.

More People Pay Attention To Fiction And To Narrative Than Pay Attention To Journalism. That's Quite Sad. More People Pay Attention To Television Than To Prose. That's Equally Sad, If Not More So.

The Mismanagement Of American Newspapering Is Quite Remarkable. But All Of The Fellows Responsible Are Now On A Golf Course In Hilton Head Or Some Such (place), Having Secured Their Bonuses And Golden-parachute Buyouts.

All Stress Is Ultimately Related To Loss Or The Fear Of Loss.

We're Now Seeing Levels Of Inequality Raise Their Heads That We Haven't Seen Since The Age Of The Robber Barons. If Somebody Watched The Deuce, And Understood The Allegory About Capital And Labor, And Understands What Happens When One Side Is Vulnerable To The Other, That Would Be Swell.

Reality Is Ultimately A Selective Act Of Perception And Interpretation. A Shift In Our Perception And Interpretation Enables Us To Break Old Habits And Awaken New Possibilities For Balance, Healing, And Transformation.

Awakening To Who We Really Are Is At The Heart Of Yoga. . . .yoga Offers A Path To This Underlying Field Of Being, Which Is The Source Of Creativity, Fulfillment, And Abundance.

Rural America's Not Coming Back. That Idea Was Lost With The Industrial Revolution. And Yet With More Than 80 Percent Of Americans Living In Metropolitan Areas, There Are Still Demagogues Who Want To Run Down The Idea Of Multiculturalism, Of Urbanity, Being The Only Future We Have. We Either Live Or Die Based On How We Live In Cities, And Our Society Is Either Going To Be Great Or Not Based On How We Perform As Creatures Of The City.

Awakening Into Love Is A Lifelong Path.

Capitalism Is The Only Engine Credible Enough To Generate Mass Wealth. I Think It's Imperfect, But We're Stuck With It. And Thank God We Have That In The Toolbox. But If You Don't Manage It In Some Way That Incorporates All Of Society, If Everybody's Not Benefiting On Some Level And You Don't Have A Sense Of Shared Purpose, National Purpose, Then It's Just A Pyramid Scheme.

Pyramid Schemes

The Trick To Making A Story Matter Is That Every Now And Then, Somebody You Care About Has To Go. If It's Somebody That You Don't Care About, Then It Doesn't Really Have - The Stakes Aren't There. But If You Do That Every Now And Then, Then The Story Matters To People. And There Are Actual Stakes Involved, Emotional Stakes.

From A Spiritual Perspective, Freedom From Attachment To A Particular Outcome Is The Ultimate Expression Of Liberation. We Can Choose The Actions We Take, But We Cannot Control The Consequences Of Our Choices.

I'd Love If People Relearned The Lessons Of The 20th Century All Over Again. Which Is To Say This Country Progressed Economically And Socially When We Had A Better Balance Between Capital And Labor. Neither Capital Or Labor Won Every Argument. The Battle Between The Two Created Economic Tension, And Transformed The Working Class Into The Middle Class, And Grew The Economy.

If I Had To Guess And Put A Name On It, I'd Say That At Some Point, The Drug War Was As Much A Function Of Class And Social Control As It Was Of Racism.

One Of The Sad Things About Contemporary Journalism Is That It Actually Matters Very Little. The World Now Is Almost Inured To The Power Of Journalism. The Best Journalism Would Manage To Outrage People. And People Are Less And Less Inclined To Outrage.

What We Were Trying To Do Was Take The Notion Of Greek Tragedy, Of Fated And Doomed People, And Instead Of These Olympian Gods, Indifferent, Venal, Selfish, Hurling Lightning Bolts And Hitting People In The Ass For No Reason — Instead Of Those Guys Whipping It On Oedipus Or Achilles, It’s The Postmodern Institutions . . . Those Are The Indifferent Gods.

Choices Are Much More Practical And Small When You're Dealing With A Real Story. It's About Execution, It's Not About Content.

In Baltimore They Can't Do Police Work To Save Their Lives. Now Because Of Freddie Gray They're Not Even Getting Out Of The Car And Policing Corners - They're On A Job Slowdown, Basically. Right Now If The Police Stopped Being Brutal, If We Got Police Shooting Under Control, And The Use Of Excessive Force, If We Have A Meaningful Societal Response To All That Stuff, And The Racism That Underlies It, The Question Still Remains: What Are They Policing, And Why?

America Is A Country That Is Now Utterly Divided When It Comes To Its Society, Its Economy, Its Politics. There Are Definitely Two Americas. I Live In One, On One Block In Baltimore That Is Part Of The Viable America, The America That Is Connected To Its Own Economy, Where There Is A Plausible Future For The People Born Into It.

Tv Writers Live Life Of Well-paid, Specialty Prostitutes. We Have A Very Special Skill Set And We Occupy One Of The Higher Floors In The Bordello That Is Writing. We Do A Very Particular Job For A Very Select Clientele.

To Be Told You've Won A Macarthur Fellowship Is Very Flattering And Gratifying Personally.

I Always Tell Lawrence Gilliard Jr. He Never Got A Decent Bite Of The Apple, So I Was Happy We Had A Role That Seemed Perfect For Him. I Like The Idea Of Him As One Of The Few Moral Centres Of The Wire Show.

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