I'm Filling these Shoes

Goddam it's been a while. I've been actually trying to apply myself to a given project and it has been taking up way too much time. But tonight something was wrapped up for me.

One of my favorite television shows ever has been "the Wire" and it just recently ended. Possibly as eloquently as a tv show has ever ended. I got the whole replaceable motif. Gangstas are replaced by ganstas, cops by cops, but for what ever reason I couldn't put my thumb on how they did it in such a positive light. I remember finishing the series and being inspired by it, like there was a greater hope for humanity that I hadn't seen. I didn't understand how this was possible because the bad guys usually won, the good guys got fucked over but somehow it over came all that to give me some overwhelmingly positive response to that. I had no way to articulate that until I saw a film "Beautiful Losers" tonight.

"Beautiful Losers" is a documentary film on the underground art movement that burgeoned out of New York in the early 1990s. I didn't realize how much influence these guys had over my current generation's style and culture. Aaron Rose, the director and one of the contributors of the movement, interviews all of the people involved in this subculture. He speaks to an assortment of many people that were involved in this whole agglomeration of street subculture that blossomed in his art gallery "Alleged."

How it potentially ties to cops and robbers plot of "The Wire" may seem stretched but it somehow clicked for me. Both these shows stressed these cast aways, degenerates, focusing their energies and collective conscience into something. Druglording from "The Wire" holds a certain dark pedigree so it's hard to see the same thing, but in "Beautiful Losers" they really focused on the fact that these people chose this lifestyle. They were different, knew they were different, and yet, they embraced all that and made the decision to be who they are. That is what I failed to see in the closing episode of "The Wire." Sure, we're all fucked, bound to be replaced but it also showed that we control what we do and can decide who WE replace, what shoes we fill. And that is so fucking empowering. Yeah, we may all be dust or whatever someday, but right now I'm going to decide what I do.