Can you catch? Do you have HBO? Will you be my friend?

I threw a Snicker bar to my friend in a hammock once. Good throw. Good catch. Good friend. I used to ask "Can you catch?" as a kind of cultural watershed. If the response was "Why can't you just bring it to me?" then they were dead to me, a waste of my precious time.

Now I ask "Do you like The Wire?" You can tell me you only watch real things like reality shows or that The Wire is on the same time as The Reese Preeber Hour, and then that will be it.

The difference between The Wire and anything else on television is like the difference between my fist and your mom's fat ass. The difference between Baltimore and Maryland.

What is especially jarring is the non-token role of blacks. No wisecracking butlers, no sassy mamas, no wise old gelded black men. Television, beblacked yet unWayansed. Multi-faceted roles, Africa-black actors. Should that be jarring? It is frigging insane, for television.